The optimal design of supply chain networks is often examined based on one or more economic or other criteria (e.g., cost, profit environmental impact, danger, time). However, the efficiency of the ...derived solutions is often ignored. In this work, a recursive DEA (RDEA) algorithm is presented, which introduces a different way of designing a supply chain network. The selection of possible installed facilities is based on minimum cost and maximum efficiency, through a MILP model. Optimal supply chain structure is obtained when the termination criterion is met, yielding only the efficient solutions, while simultaneously reducing the overall cost. An application of this RDEA algorithm to a biomass supply chain is examined. A comparative study is also presented, demonstrating the results obtained when solving the MILP without the proposed algorithm and with the use of an RDEA.
•In this study we propose a RDEA-based algorithm for the optimal design of supply chain networks.•Solutions from the MILP model are proposed for the optimal design of supply chain networks and chosen based on maximum TE.•Extensions to biomass supply chain networks are examined.•A comparative analysis of the problem with and without the RDEA algorithm is presented.•A sensitivity analysis for different demand representations is also conducted.
Big data analytics provides many opportunities to develop new avenues for understanding hospitality management and to support decision making in this field. User-generated content (UGC) provides ...benefits for hotel managers to gain feedback from customers and enhance specific product attributes or service characteristics in order to increase business value and support marketing activities. Many scholars have provided significant findings about the determinants of customers’ satisfaction in hospitality. However, most researchers primarily used research methodologies such as customer surveys, interviews, or focus groups to examine the determinants of customers’ satisfaction. Thus, more studies must explore how to use UGC to bridge the gap between guest satisfaction and online reviews. This paper examines and compares the aspects of satisfaction and dissatisfaction of Greek hotels’ guests. Text analytics was implemented to deconstruct hotel guest reviews and then examine their relationship with hotel satisfaction. This paper helps hotel managers determine specific product attributes or service characteristics that impact guest satisfaction and dissatisfaction and how hotel guests’ attitudes to those characteristics are affected by hotels’ market positioning and strategies.
Total quality management and innovation are two inherently related concepts that appear to have an important role in the performance of agro-food companies. The main aim of this paper is to review ...and discuss the theoretical and practical linkages between quality management and innovation, focusing on the agro-food industry, which is characterized as a low-tech sector with high demands for quality standards and food safety systems. The presented review identifies and discusses three conceptual frameworks, and the findings indicate the positive effect of quality on innovation and vice versa, while both factors have a positive impact on firms’ performance. However, other internal and external factors may affect both firm’s quality management and innovation activities. Particularly for the agro-food industry, access to current and new markets is a major motive, objective, and outcome of the quality-innovation nexus, revealing the importance of adopting customer-focused culture.
To reap the potential of renewable energy investments, many states of the European Union have been enacting policies to attract investments from various actors including citizens. Citizen ...satisfaction with investments has not been examined so far and, consequently, it is unknown whether the implemented policies are correct. Due to its ability to reveal weaknesses that affect satisfaction, satisfaction analysis may serve as a policy decision making tool, while a higher level of citizen satisfaction may build trustful relationships between citizens and governments and enhance citizen acceptance of renewable energy development plans. The aim of this study was to investigate citizen satisfaction with the state’s actions to facilitate investments in renewable energy sources and to detect the weaknesses of the current investment environment. A representative nationwide citizen sample (n = 1536) was recruited in a country of the European Union (Greece) and the MUlticriteria Satisfaction Analysis (MUSA) method analyzed eight criteria related to RES investments. The analysis indicated a low level of citizen satisfaction, while the most prominent weaknesses involved the licensing process and the policies for mitigating fossil fuel monopolies and improving the competitiveness of renewables. Results from this study point to strategic steps that could address weak policy areas that contribute to low citizen satisfaction.
•National sustainability is measured on a scale 0, 1 using the revised SAFE model.•69 environmental and socio-economic indicators are used and 164 countries are ranked.•Sensitivity analysis shows ...which indicators improve sustainability the most.•Progress towards sustainability worldwide in the last 25 years is rather modest.
SAFE (Sustainability Assessment by Fuzzy Evaluation) is updated with data starting at 1990 and reaching 2016. Older versions of the model have been refined to remove outdated indicators and incorporate new ones. Also new modules were added to expose various dynamic features of sustainability worldwide. In all 69 time series of basic indicators are used to generate various intermediate sustainability indices and finally an overall index for 164 countries which are ranked accordingly. Data are manipulated statistically to introduce memory, then normalized in 0, 1, and finally passed through a sequential fuzzy reasoning system to obtain the SAFE sustainability index. A sensitivity analysis reveals those indicators with the highest potential of improving sustainability. Most countries have made a modest progress towards sustainability over 1990–2016. Interestingly, North America shows a small decline. Another counterintuitive result is the relatively low ranking of advanced countries such as South Korea, a fact explained satisfactorily by the model. Finally, there is a high correlation of the SAFE index and per capita income which implies that sustainability is predicated on a reasonably high economic level.
In the past decades, the stakeholders, due to the evident impacts of climate change, were more involved in strategic actions and informing the public opinion on climate change. However, in order to ...achieve ongoing and substantial public participation in climate change actions undertaken by the stakeholders, the public will need to be fully informed about the causes and effects of climate change so that a mutual relationship of trust may be established. The present study aims to investigate public perceptions of the information citizens obtain from information sources, stakeholders' share of responsibility for climate change and citizens’ degree of trust in the stakeholders which affects public participation in climate change actions. The study was conducted in Greece, where 1536 questionnaires were collected from January 2014 to June 2015. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive and nonparametric statistics, as well as the MUSA method (MUlticriteria Satisfaction Analysis). The study findings indicated that the citizens do not trust adequately information sources regarding climate change and, at the same time, they perceive that the dissemination of information on climate change is limited and consider that the media which use scientific knowledge provide more objective information. Moreover, Greek citizens consider that industries, oil companies and governments contribute mostly to climate change and they were willing to participate in climate change actions carried out mainly by scientists, environmental groups, citizen groups and non-governmental organizations.
•We present an effective way to summarize patients’ pathways.•A new spectral approach that emphasizes robustness is proposed for trace clustering.•The method is applied to the emergency department of ...a public hospital.
Business processes constitute an essential asset of organizations while the related process models help to better comprehend the process and therefore to enable effective process analysis or redesign. However, there are several working environments where flows are particularly flexible (e.g., healthcare, customer service) and process models are either very hard to get created, or they fail to reflect reality. The aim of this paper is to support decision-making by providing comprehensible process models in the case of such flexible environments. Following a process mining approach, we propose a methodology to cluster customers’ flows and produce effective summarizations. We propose a novel method to create a similarity metric that is efficient in downgrading the effect of noise and outliers. We use a spectral technique that emphasizes the robustness of the estimated groups, therefore it provides process analysts with clearer process maps. The proposed method is applied to a real case of a healthcare institution delivering valuable insights and showing compelling performance in terms of process models’ complexity and density.
Agriculture is a basic activity of human survival and its sustainability is of the utmost importance. In this paper, we present a novel mathematical model for the assessment of agricultural ...sustainability, based on certain intuitive and fundamental postulates. The resulting mathematical framework generalizes most existing models. We then rank 148 countries according to their agricultural sustainability, using data from the period 1995 to 2022 and pinpoint those aspects with the highest potential of improving sustainability using sensitivity analysis. Our findings demonstrate that farming is mostly unsustainable worldwide. The most crucial factors are connected with bad water use, destruction of biodiversity, and the prevalence of conventional chemical farming. As expected, poor countries make the bottom of the sustainability list. Surprisingly, several advanced countries such as Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands and Norway also occupy the bottom of the list because of very high emissions and bad performance concerning land and biodiversity. Finally, the highest score worldwide is of the order of only 70% and the median 50%, which exhibit a rather unsatisfactory farming state of affairs. Such findings ought to guide immediate action to make agriculture more sustainable.
•Agricultural sustainability is measured using an axiomatic mathematical model.•26 environmental and socio-economic indicators are used and 148 countries are ranked.•Sensitivity analysis shows which indicators improve sustainability the most.•The numerical results indicate that agriculture is mostly unsustainable worldwide.
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