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Messenger marketing is part of global digital trend that acts as a new avenue for tour firms to adopt based on convenience in interaction, ability to reach more audiences and collaboration with customers. The study aimed to examine the effect of messenger marketing on performance of tour operating companies in Kenya. The study was anchored on diffusion innovation theory. Cross-sectional and correlational research design were utilized. The study applied census approach to a target population of 212 general managers of tour operating companies. Online and physical questionnaires were used to collect primary data. The supervisors and experts were used to examine validity of the instrument while Cronbach Alpha was adopted to test reliability was 0.783 which was above a threshold of 0.7, hence reliable. Descriptive statistics consisting of mean and standard deviations were used to summarize data while simple linear regression was used to test significance at 5%. The results revealed that messenger marketing platform was practiced by the tour operating companies through using mobile services platform for sending messages, chatting and soliciting sales. It also assisted in obtaining customer feedback, blogging and chatting with customers. However, the Chatbots were hardly used by firms which adopted artificial intelligence in communicating, sending random messages and could be integrated to existing online platforms. The results indicated that messenger marketing had positive significant effect on the performance of tour operating companies (ß1=0.428, P = 0.000<0.05). The study concludes that messenger marketing platform marketing significantly influenced performance of tour operating companies. The study recommends tour operating companies should apply Chatbots, mobile service, mobile commerce and conversation commerce to enhance customer relationship and improve performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposed a new flexible approach to optimization of hybrid transmission Operating companies (HTOC) in which the maximization of the revenue of combined company as well as maximizing social welfare from the perspective of the independent system operator (ISO) is considered. The company's strategy is to maximize its revenue both through the transmission and through the sale and buying of energy in the day-ahead energy market using storage resources. The use of a bi-level model to optimize the objective functions of the problem along with the proposed strategy to maximize the company's revenue has been proposed, which has been transformed into a single-level model using the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT). In order to achieve a guaranteed income, the uncertainty of competitors' behavior is modeled by a modified scenario based method(MSBM). The proposed model is first simulated on a IEEE 9-Bus Standard System and then on a IEEE 57-Bus Standard System using GAMS software. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed strategy to maximize the revenue of the combined company.

Designing energy systems becomes more and more important as distributed and renewable energy production gains attention. As distributed systems have quite different challenges than centralized ones, novel solution methods are in demand and have been proposed. Sustainability is an ever increasingly important factor for decision makers. The aim is to utilize renewable energy sources like wood, grass, manure, etc., while keeping in mind that their transportation for long distances is impractical. Revitalization of local and regional economy is also a priority. Previous work applied the P-Graph methodology to design an energy system based on biomass in a rural region. A more recent extension of the P-Graph framework is the utilization of operating units with flexible input materials, which makes more accurate equipment models possible. This flexibility is important because certain operating units can tolerate some change in the ratio of their input materials and others cannot. In this work, a method is proposed to design an energy system in a rural area. The notion of flexible operating units is applied to a case study, giving us the possibility to identify optimal composition of biomass feeds and plant size. Our model includes the collection and transportation of local renewable resources, fermenters and combined heat and power (CHP) plants, in order to optimize profit from generated heat and electricity. The case study shows that this modeling technique results in 31% more profit with a considerably lower computational effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Crónica Tributaria is the property of Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, Ministerio de Hacienda y Funcion Publica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Resilience is one of the key indicators of processing systems, it expresses the behaviour of the system as a result of expected or unexpected failures. This indicator can be essential during systems design and operation, especially, when the system is part of or related to a critical infrastructure. The numerous contributions on systems resilience are related to a wide range of applications, however, there is no general uniform framework for resilience evaluation. For instance, most studies examine resilience as a function of the continuous parameters of the system, usually avoiding the influence of its structure. In the current work, a general framework for determining the structural resilience of processing systems is presented. This framework derives on formulas that satisfy the requirements of the original definition of resilience. The formerly developed P-graph framework is the mathematical basis of the procedure for determining the indicator. The resilience of the system is calculated as a function of the operative subprocesses for all possible failures and is a normalized indicator on [0, 1]. The examination of two industrial case studies shows that the proposed resilience can be an appropriate indicator to be considered in process design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporations uniquely have a tax preference for cash dividends. Nevertheless, dividends do not increase following trades of large-percentage blocks of stock from individuals to corporations. Moreover, although one-third of firms have corporate blockholders, 68% of these firms pay no dividends, and ownership is not clustered at levels that increase the lax benefits of dividends. These findings ate not driven by the investing firms' tax rates of by agency problems. Instead, operating companies expand the target firms and pursue joint ventures. Dividends ate lower with these investors. Financial investors ate not attracted to dividend-paying firms and tend to be passive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the use of social return on investments (SROI) in four operating companies in 2004. Wilson TurboPower, a technology provider for vehicle propulsion systems, uses SROI for corporate funding. Mobius Technologies has developed an SROI analysis to demonstrate to investors and customers the health and environmental value of installing their equipment. Bronx Charter School for the Arts, an elementary school with a focus on arts education, uses SROI to measure the school's long-term impact on the lives of its students. Calvert Social Investment Foundation, a non-profit enterprise, is dedicated to ending poverty through investment. It uses SROI primarily as a marketing and reporting tool.

Copyright of Revista Română de Drept al Afacerilor is the property of Wolters Kluwer Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Al-Anbar University Journal of Economic & Administration Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract This study proposes a measurement instrument for port performance in the context of container transport logistics (CTLs) by taking perspectives from different port stakeholders. An importance-performance analysis (IPA) is used to develop an analytical tool for investigating the importance and performance (IP) of major container ports in South Korea against individual CTLs criterion. The main originality of this study is the development of a measurement instrument to provide managerial and operational insights to both port managers (i.e. terminal operating companies) and policy makers (i.e. port authorities and government) for stakeholder management in CTLs. The analysis helps port managers and policy makers to converge the different objectives and concerns for better management. Highlights • Importance-performance analysis for port performance in the context of container transport logistics. • Taking different port stakeholders' perspective from port managers and policy makers. • Introduces both quantitative and qualitative port performance indicators. • Container ports from South Korea as examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the topic's centrality to theorizing in organizational ecology, no study has examined in detail how founding, failure, and transformation events combine over time to achieve population-level change. We examined Darwinian and Lamarckian processes of population reconfiguration within the gasoline retail industry at two nested levels of analysis, studying both individual outlets and parent companies. Our findings demonstrate how Darwinian processes at the unit (outlet) level may lead to Lamarekian adaptations at the organization (company) level through purposive replication of successful forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies Buzen's algorithm to the problem of determining the maintenance float needed to support an operating system with N circulating units. A maintenance network with load-independent servers is assumed. The operating system availability and maintenance floats are obtained using this iterative algorithm. It is shown that the normalizing constant used in the algorithm can easily be computed for the maintenance float problem by using geometric series. This result is further used to obtain a simple model for the expected number of operating units, thus making it easy to compute the operating system availability for any given N. Buzen's algorithm therefore provides a simple solution to the maintenance float problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports the major descriptive results of a study of corporate planning in 48 U.K. companies in the mid-1970s. Introduction of corporate planning clearly quickened in the 1970s. The number of specialist corporate planners tended to be small and was correlated with company size. Responsibilities of planners varied between operating companies, divisions, and the corporate parent company. Corporate planners had widened the scope of their plans since the late 1960s, made fairly extensive use of written documents and procedures, and often used a high number of sophisticated techniques for forecasting and evaluation, but their use of documents and techniques was far from uncritical. The extent of planning varied between types of companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work regulates the life of the individual; individuals' feelings about their work can determine the future of their families...of their countries...of our world. For nearly twenty years a group at Columbia University has been studying man's relation to his work, and how human resources can best be utilized. Here are some of the conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper we study single server machining system having operating as well as mixed standby units. The service station is subject to breakdown while in operation. The life times and repair times of the failed units and service station are assumed to be exponentially distributed. The set up time for the repairing of service station is also exponentially distributed. In case when all standby units are exhausted, the system may also operate in degraded mode with less than M operating units, which are required for normal functioning of the system. We employ recursive method to obtain the steady state probability distribution of the number of failed units in the system. The performance indices such as expected number of failed units in the system, average waiting time, throughput, etc. are obtained in closed form in terms of probabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies on corporate social responsibility (CSR) have focused on the understanding of CSR, CSR practices, reasons for and barriers against the adoption of CSR, and the extent of adoption. In tourism, CSR has been closely linked to responsible tourism as tourism is believed to bring with it a number of negative impacts; hence, CSR is used as one of the ways of protecting the very resources that attract tourists to ensure the sustainability of tourism businesses. More studies have been conducted on CSR adoption in hospitality operations than the tourism sector worldwide. This study explores the practices and perspectives on CSR by tour operating companies in Malawi and the extent to which they have adopted the concept. A qualitative research approach was used for this study with semistructured interviews targeting senior managers of the tour operating companies. The study found that most tour operating companies have not fully adopted CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the interaction process of a sprouted potato tuber withpotato-planter’s operating units. The purpose of the research is to ensure its stable orientation on the bottom of a furrow with the sprouts upwards. As a result of mathematical process simulation, the reasons of tubers’ space orientation instability during utilization of known machine prototypes. With regard to this, an optimal algorithm of sprouted tubers’ planting process was defined resulting in design of a new planting machine and implementation of the algorithm for interaction with planted tubers that is close to optimal. Besides, the axis of the vehicle’s supporting wheels is the axis of planting machine at the same time which eliminates the need in both mechanical transmission and rolling bearings. In other words, the operating procedure optimality is successfully combined with simplicity of the construction and low price of the machine. The potato-planter has been successfully utilized at the farms in the Bryansk region for many years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A seaport terminal is a vital link in the global supply chain which has a profound impact on port competitiveness and international trade. However, ongoing worldwide economic slumps, coupled with the proliferation of terminal operators, have created a glut for terminal-related logistics services and intensified competition among terminal operators. As a way to better utilize the existing terminal infrastructure and enhance terminal operating efficiencies, we propose an integrated terminal operating system that can reduce duplicated investments in equipment, redundant workforce, and non-value-adding processes, while standardizing terminal services including loading/unloading, discharging, and transferring cargo. To verify the usefulness of the proposed integrated terminal operating system, we develop key performance indicators of terminal operations which help to measure the comparative performances of both an integrated group and a non-integrated group of terminal operators and then formulate viable strategic options for creating 'win-win' situations for terminal operators and their stakeholders including port administrators. In so doing, we examine the current practices of terminal operators at the Incheon Inner harbor in Korea through in-depth interviews and then identify critical success factors for integrated terminal operations based on a questionnaire survey and analytic hierarchy process. These factors include the terminal operator's cargo attraction level, cargo turnover ratio, cargo storage capacity, and ability to comply with government rules and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limited liability companies are built on the idea of contractual freedom. Unlike with other business organization forms, most owner protections apply only by default to LLCs, which are free to waive or modify them as desired. This freedom promises economic efficiency if parties are sophisticated but raises the potential for opportunism by relatively more sophisticated managers and majority owners. While companies ranging from small landscape firms to Chrysler and Fidelity organize as LLCs, remarkably little is known about whether or how LLCs use this contractual flexibility. I analyze the operating agreements of 283 privately owned LLCs organized under Delaware and New York law to determine when and how parties alter default provisions. I find widespread use of LLC statutes' flexibility to decrease default owner protections, as well as widespread adoption of owner protections that do not apply by default. There is little evidence, however, that the contractual freedom is used to craft systematically more efficient contractual owner protections. Instead, using a proxy fo r owner vulnerability, I find that LLCs with more vulnerable owners adopt significantly fewer owner safeguards, suggesting that contractual freedom may be used more often for opportunism and not for efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of railway timetable design in practice and the combinatorial optimization models that have been proposed for this application, putting emphasis on passenger railway services in the European railway market. We start with a description of the role of the timetable for a railway system, including the perspective of both types of railway companies: train operating companies (TOC) and infrastructure managing companies. We elaborate on the different subprocesses in timetable design that have to be conducted, some of which are exclusive to TOCs, while others are in the responsibility of the infrastructure manager. The two major streams of combinatorial optimization models for railway timetabling must not be understood as concurring models. Rather, they address different subprocesses, even with a focus on different types of railway companies. In this paper we provide a comparison of the different approaches on a number of relevant criteria. Having sketched the major streams we list methods that have been developed for improving the robustness of timetables, including stochastic optimization models and light robustness models. We also provide a description of a number of applications of timetable planning models in practice. We conclude this paper with some topics for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Scientific Papers of Silesian University of Technology. Organization & Management / Zeszyty Naukowe Politechniki Slaskiej. Seria Organizacji i Zarzadzanie is the property of Silesian Technical University, Organisation & Management Faculty and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The reliability evaluation for a multi-units cold standby system with a switch-over under Poisson shocks is investigated. The random value of each shock is assumed to be i.i.d. with some known distribution. Each arrival of a shock has a random effect on the operating unit and on the switch-over. When the operating unit fails while the switch-over is normal, the next cold standby unit will start to operate immediately. The system fails only when all the units have failed or both the operating unit and the switch-over have failed. The reliability function and the mean time to the failure (MTTF) of the system are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this research is to amend the current contracting system to improve the quality of inter-urban bus services in metropolitan areas and thereby increase demand and reduce externalities. A methodology is proposed for tendering transport contracts which is applied in the Spanish region of Castilla and León. Based on a previous demand model, new incentives are proposed to encourage the operating companies to make improvements in the quality of service they provide on their metropolitan bus routes. The main contribution made by this research with respect to other similar methodologies is found in the incorporation of the subjective value of time and willingness to pay in exchange for improvements in service quality. This information is used to determine the optimal formula for public subsidies. The results show that, without any increase in costs for the administration, the amount of the subsidy due for underuse of the service could be reduced by increasing demand through providing a more attractive public transport service. It has also been shown that improvements in quality could be profitable, not only for society at large but also for the operating companies themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Action learning is often used as an element of leadership development programmes. The intention is to support classroom learning with an experiential thread which runs throughout the life of the programme. Action Learning Associates (ALA) has been working with an international organisation for three years to deliver the global ‘First Line Manager Programme’ (FLMP). The action learning facilitator training (ALFT) programme is designed to enable participants to run action learning sets in their operational companies across the world. Originally created in English – the official business language – the ALFT is now also delivered in French. The focus of the paper is to explore learning, challenges and opportunities created by scaling up the delivery of ALFT to a global target audience of approximately 700 people. To date ALA has trained over 165 internal action learning facilitators from different countries, languages, cultures and professional backgrounds. The value to the participants of being skilled to run their own action learning sets, within the context of the FLMP, is explored along with the opportunities for organisational development and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]