IEEE TEMS LEADER MAGAZINE by IEEE TEMS-LEADER MAGAZINE

EDITORIAL TEAM

EDITORIAL TEAM IEEE TEMS PUBLICATIONS VICE-CHAIR

IEEE TEMS LEADER EDITOR

Mark Werwath

Ravikiran Annaswamy

Publications Vice President

Editor in chief

IEEE TEMS LEADER VOLUNTEERS

Andanagouda Patil Web and Curation

Mallikarjun Choukimath Marketing

Islem Cherif General

CONTENTS

05 08

Leading for the Future

I believe that good leaders are made, not born. Good leaders develop through a continuous process of education, training, experience, and reflection.

President’s Letter TEMS moves forward and evolves into the IEEE Society focused on building ties between research and business.

Technical Activity Committees Technical Activity Committees started mid year in 2016, with each of 4 committees creating a brief scope of interest.

Process

15 I heard a speech today that included a reference as follows: “This organization needs to be more results oriented and less process oriented.”

Invitation to Join TAC Cognitive Technologies in Engineering Management Technical Activity Committees started mid year in 2016, with each of 4 committees creating a brief scope of interest.

CONTENTS

Project and Delivery Management Technical Activity Committee Report

The New Moral Authority-Social Media

The newest TAC formally updated its name after meeting at TEMSCON 2017 in Santa Clara, California. There was a time when the prevailing thought, taught in most business and law schools was that the sole purpose of business

Update Fourth Quarter of 2017 and Looking Ahead In this edition of Leader, or separately later on, impression reports will also follow onICMSE and ICDIM.

TEMS Membership Development Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more than just joining, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s engagement.

I was able to attend an excellent talk from one of our alumni CEOs who started by saying that no project is impossible.

35 24

The Impossibility of Success

Robot Proofing Your Future

EMR: A Call for Contributors The IEEE EMR, the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society (TEMS) journal of practice, will transition to original content in 2018.

Call for Papers: TEMSCON 2018 2018 International Conference of the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society

Those of us who have worked in the field of automation and robotics realize that we are entering a new golden age.

Editorial IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management Editorial for November 2017 Issue

EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COLUMN

LEADING FOR THE FUTURE

EDITOR’S COLUMN

communicate your findings to others, and be creative in your efforts to solve problems and move technology forward. AUTHOR: KAREN BARTLESON 2017 IEEE President and CEO

I believe that good leaders are made, not born. Good leaders develop through a continuous process of education, training, experience, and reflection. If you have the desire and determination, you can become a good leader – perhaps even a great one. I believe that good leaders are made, not born. Good leaders develop through a continuous process of education, training, experience, and reflection. If you have the desire and determination, you can become a good leader – perhaps even a great one. Having a broad range of skills – and always being willing to add to those skills – is critical for strong leadership. As technology continues to reshape the world we live in, today’s workplace mirrors those changes. We are seeing more shifts in workplace structures, more globalization, and the convergence of multiple and diverse fields of interest. In addition, today’s workforce has different motivators, expects a differently structured workplace, and has new ways of communicating than previous generations. To be successful in this ever-changing environment, our leaders need strong communication, teamwork, and critical thinking skills; imagination; emotional intelligence; and an entrepreneurial spirit. You must be able to work cooperatively,

And while your position may give you the authority to accomplish certain tasks and objectives in your organization, power or authority does not make you a leader, it simply makes you the boss. Leadership differs in that it is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. Strong leaders make those around them want to achieve higher goals, rather than simply bossing people around. As a leader, you should strive to break down barriers and provide the resources, guidance, and encouragement needed to make the team reach its goals. By its very nature, leading people is about successfully interacting with them and empowering them to achieve. Ours is an interdisciplinary world and requires collaboration that doesn’t confine itself to one discipline at the expense of all others. Therefore, it is not enough to merely know your field of interest. IEEE fields of interest have long been diversifying and intersecting, such as the convergence between fields within the biological and technical worlds inside our Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and several of the IEEE Councils that span multiple fields of interest across IEEE. In addition, diverse leadership experiences at work, in volunteer organizations, and in professional societies provide the opportunity to practice the skills needed. Experiences in these different leadership venues helps to develop a portfolio of successful techniques that you can draw on later. Collaboration is not only the cornerstone of technological development but of career advancement as well. An engineer’s ability to work with people from different backgrounds is essential. Technology has no borders. It is

EDITORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S COLUMN

not limited to those of one race, gender, or religion and has no political allegiance. As a community of diverse, vibrant professionals, IEEE is committed to advancing technology for the benefit of all humanity and needs strong leaders who can inspire our global membership to work together for a better tomorrow.

Those who can lead initiatives that span functions, sectors, and cultures will be the true game changers. These will be the leaders who will address technologyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s toughest challenges while building a rewarding career for themselves. These will be the leaders whom others will follow â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and emulate.

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

PRESIDENT’S LETTER TEMS moves forward and evolves into the IEEE Society focused on building ties between research and business.

AUTHOR: MICHAEL W. CONDRY

Several TEMS board members attended the Sections Congress in Sydney. There we sponsored a booth with other Division VI societies. Many people came, took our new brochure and asked about the new evolution of TEMS. During that time I recorded an IEEE. tv show on TEMS and gave a presentation on TEMS during one session. The response was quite positive and interest clearly growing. We are seeing more chapters get started and existing ones engage. After Sydney, I went to Singapore to talk our chapter there. They were exceptionally interested in changes in TEMS and getting more engaged at the society level. I hope to see this from many other groups, particularly active ones. TEMS was also engaged in the IoT event in Wuxi China that is trying to motivate growing industry in the IoT space particularly, in China. Another partner conference, ICDIM, was held in Fukuoka, Japan. You can see more at www.icdim.org. There I presented a keynote on technical and management staff development in today’s technology companies. E-TEMS will be held in Munich October 17–19 with industry engagements focused

on “Digital Transformation for Advanced Manufacturing – Managing Technological Challenges.” See http://www.e-tems.org/ for more details. The plans for TEMSCON 2018 in Chicago, www.temscon.org, are taking shape with a good Industry Forum Track in progress. At our TEMS events, company leaders present discuss their technology visions and challenges. The Industry Forum Tracks will be a signature activity of our TEMSCON events, bringing those who have successfully engaged in the development from idea to product together with those studying the practices and theories behind technical management. Look for them in all our future TEMSCON programs. Publications are being modernized starting with original content for Engineering Manager’s Notebook (EMR) in 2018 with a focus on practical writings as well as technical manager’s notebook where managers describe their challenges and experiences. In addition to technical managers’ advise and practices, EMR will also be attracting articles on technology directions written for managers to understand aspects of technology, such as IoT, and where their business might benefit from engaging. The society is growing. Engage in TACs and impact the direction of our programs. Learn from the leaders and become one. We aim to be the flagship society where industry directions and needs are met and guide research in all technical areas.

MANAGEMENT

PROCESS

MANAGEMENT

AUTHOR: MARK W. WERWATH

I heard a speech today that included a reference as follows: “This organization needs to be more results oriented and less process oriented.” That phrase resonated with me for some time thereafter for a few reasons: 1. I have heard this phrase many times before in industry. 2. It is usually a great excuse to go back to “cowboy tactics” that often lead to mistakes and quality issues. 3. This kind of thinking takes an organization backwards in terms of process evolution. 4. I know exactly where this sentiment is coming from, and I can sympathize. Organizations, like people, go through a natural evolution. Early in the development of an organization, like a startup, process is hard to find and usually is not well embraced. Process is an impediment but on the other hand, results are also sporadic and inconsistent. Startups revolve around a cowboy culture of heroes that go to

herculean lengths to get something done. There is usually no concern with efficiency or quality or reliability since the imbedded base of users is small and the legacy is short or non existent. After all, this isn’t life or death, right? Over time, as small wins become big wins, the base of users grows. The expectations expand to meet the ever expanding needs of the users and the situations may, in some cases, become life or death. Look at Facebook. We have all read about life or death situations on Facebook including the latest situation with political ads influencing elections and fake news being published. Facebook no longer has the luxury of running like a cowboy culture of a startup. Process must become an integral part of how they get their job done. When you have been in business awhile, success is no longer a function of merely making users smile every once in a while with some cool feature, it is about consistently making your clients happy (or delighted) with the product or service. You can’t afford to let your user base down. While process is great at helping create consistent outputs and quality deliverables, over time, too much process can lead to cultural stagnation, a culture of bureaucracy and a culture where “no” is the prevalent answer. A culture of “it can’t be done” starts to prevail. This is why, in part, the CEO of a large company is often looking for “can do” and “make it happen” people to promote into leadership roles. While the CEO of a large company wants to hear how things can get done, the renegades that work outside of the process often fail to deliver as they don’t understand the processes that make things happen inside the organization. Ideally, you have people, in a mature organization, who both know how to get things done and also know how to best follow

MANAGEMENT

the process. Designing flexibility and agility into the process is a key to success in large mature organizations. Knowing where in the organization innovation and creativity is needed and where process adherence and compliance is needed is part of the challenge of designing todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s robust organization. There is a place for the divergent thinkers, the creative ones and there is a place for the convergent thinkers. The ideal organization assigns the right type of person to the right project at the ideal time. Ultimately it is a false choice to choose between process and results. Process was always

intended to help guarantee results, that is why we have process. If we have process for other reasons, perhaps political or bureaucratic, then process exists for the wrong reasons and should be dismantled. Like a surgeon however, it is not usually a good idea to make blanket assumptions about the process vs results continuum. Each case, and each individual in the process needs careful review before major changes are put in place. Processes need to be tailored carefully, usually with a scalpel rather than an axe. This too is a skill that maturing organizations need to develop. A role that a robust engineering manager can help fulfil.

TACs

TECHNICAL ACTIVITY COMMITTEES

TACs

committee is working with IEEE volunteers and staff on potential events for innovators.

AUTHOR: CELIA DESMOND

Technical Activity Committees, or TACs, are ramping up within TEMS. These committees started mid year in 2016, with each of 4 committees creating a brief scope of interest. Each ended the year with a roster of members, in numbers ranging from 10–50. By mid 2017 we now have 5 functioning TACs, each with members, and most with some ongoing activities. The committees held live meetings at TEMSCON in San Jose in June, where some new members joined. Excellent discussions ensued during these meetings, encouraging the members to become active in TEMS. Four of the committees now have new leadership, and if you check the profiles of the committee leaders, you will find some quite impressive people. Two have changed their names, and two have refined their scope, so if you have not viewed the TAC info recently, it’s worth checking the site. The committees are discussing potential papers and sessions for upcoming conferences, and at the time of writing this article, one is in the process of organizing a potential workshop to be held at eTEMS in Munich in October. Another

Over the summer, 3 different people have proposed starting additional TACs, which is wonderful. We look forward to seeing the described scope for each of these, and hope that all can be approved. If you are interested in joining any of the TACs – and anyone can join, everyone is welcome – please contact the Chair of the committee of interest, or contact Celia Desmond c. desmond@ieee.org, to be linked to the committee. If you wish to start a new TAC, please send a description of the proposed scope, and some info on possible committee Chair (maybe that is you?) and members to c. desmond@ieee.org. We would love to hear from you.

TACs

THE CURRENT COMMITTEES, FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT KNOW THEM, ARE: Engineering Processes Technical Activity Committee (TAC) Chair: Richard Evans R.Evans@westminster.ac.uk CoChair: Axel Richter axel.richter@engineering-consult.com Coordinator: Khalil ben Sassi khalil.bensassi.1993@ieee.org

Entrepreneurship and Innovation Technical Activity Committee (TAC) Chair: Oliver Yu oliver.yu@sjsu.edu Vice Chair: Darold David darold@replicant-ad.net

Social Management Technical Activity Committee (TAC) Alfredo Herrara Alfredo.herrera@ieee.org Leslie Martinich lmartinich@ieee.org

The Digital Enterprise Technologies (TAC) Liang Downey lxdowney@ieee.org

Project Management Chair: Dr. Jason Hui jason.k.hui@ieee.org Vice Chair: Sarang Shaikh sarangshaikh@ieee.org

TACs

Invitation to Join TAC Cognitive Technologies in Engineering Management AUTHOR: CELIA DESMOND

Dear colleagues, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to invite you to join the TAC Cognitive Technologies in Engineering Management. The aim of this TAC is to elaborate justified approaches that could facilitate the measurement of qualitative phenomena in knowledge-oriented industrial enterprises. It is obvious that industrial enterprises have strategic challenges in current environment. In order to compete in these terms, enterprises are in need to transform their organizational processes and pay more attention to operative efficiency, behavioral aspects, incentives, and organization capabilities. The scope of interest of our TAC deals with the elaboration of analytical methods and models formalizing semi-structured and qualitative phenomena in enterprises. I guess you would have incentives in generating and sharing ideas concerning this scope of interest and together we could contribute to the development of knowledge economy. Thank you in advance for taking this offer. Please contact Celia Desmond c.desmond@ieee.org to participate.

TACs

PROJECT AND DELIVERY MANAGEMENT TECHNICAL ACTIVITY COMMITTEE REPORT

TACs

building a global community. Goals of the TAC are three-fold:

AUTHOR: DR. JASON K. HUI

The newest TAC formally updated its name after meeting at TEMSCON 2017 in Santa Clara, California. Its vision and scope is to serve as a forum to foster the understanding of issues and solutions, and encourage and promote improved methods and practices among project and delivery managers involved in managing engineering and technology. In particular, the TAC will cover all aspects of project and delivery management by initiating discussions, promoting educational content, and fostering partnerships and activities among industry practitioners and experts in

• To promote and influence project and delivery management • To motivate the development of educational products and training programs • To engage a community of members in knowledge sharing via TEMS conferences and publications Current members are already engaged in reviewing journal papers, participating as paper reviewers and track chairs at next year’s TEMSCON 2018, and generating articles for the IEEE Engineering Management Review Technology Manager’s Notebook. Vice-Chair Sarang Shaikh will be heading social media for the TAC this fall. The TAC is accepting members to join and participate. A call for new members was recently sent out to all TEMS Chapter Chairs. If you are interested, please contact Dr. Jason Hui (jason.k.hui@ieee.org) or Sarang Shaikh (sarangshaikh@ieee.org).

TACs

UPDATE FOURTH QUARTER OF 2017 AND LOOKING AHEAD

CONFERENCES

Planning for 2018 and Beyond

AUTHOR: ROBERT BIERWOLF

Past Periods In the past year 2017, the following conferences that IEEE TEMS supported were held: TEMSCON 2017, Santa Clara,US, June 8–10 ISIE 2017, Edinburgh, UK, June 19–21 ICE/ITMC 2017, Madeira, Portugal, June 26–30 ICMSE 2017, 24th edition in Nomi, Japan, August 17–20 ICDIM 2017, Fukokoa, Japan Sep 12–14.

In this edition of Leader, or separately later on, impression reports will also follow on ICMSE and ICDIM by Mike Andrews and Michael Condry, respectively as they had participated in these conferences. And we have one more conference coming for the end of the year: The European Technology & Engineering Management Summit ( E-TEMS 2017), Munich, Germany, Okt 17 – 19/20, in collaboration with the Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship (SCE), industry and entrepreneurs, led by Thomas Holzmann with the theme being Digital Transformation for Advanced Manufacturing – Managing Technological Challenges. On the Tuesday we will have the SCE Entrepreneurship Day. The core of the conference are the Wednesday which will be workshops and visits and the Thursday which will be the paper presentations. And Friday morning ends with the TEMS Open Board meetings for Publications, Conferences, Technical Activities and Membership. Do visit the website www.e-tems.org for more details.

Work is also underway for 2018. Following is the working list of conferences in their order of appearance: • TEMSCON Spring 2018 should also bring about a conference entrepreneurship and innovation in Bejing at the Tsinghua University, Center for Innovation Research as the main host institute, with Professors Liu, Chen and Quan in the lead. Plan dates are March 29 to April 1, 2018. More on this will come out soon evidently as it is short notice. • For April we are arranging for an IEEE TEMS Industry Forum 2018 to be held in Bangalore, India led by Ravikaran Annaswamy. The exact dates need to be fixed yet, but the theme to be expected is: Product Leadership. • In May we will support and co-sponsor together with IES the IEEE International Conference on Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems, ICPS-2018, Saint‑Petersburg, Russia, May 15–18, 2018 at ITMO University which is to provide a platform to exchange research and innovation results, lessons learned from industrial practices associated to new paradigms and technologies such as Cyber-Physical Systems, Digital Economy, Industry 4.0, Digitalization of the Industry and the Industrial-Internet-ofThings, among others. • Chair Guido Baltes leads the 24th edition of the International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation ICE/ITMC 2018 in June 17–20 in Stuttgart, with as theme for the year 2018, Era of Connectedness: The Future of Technology, Engineering & Innovation in a Digital Society. And associated thereto in 2018 the NITIM summer school will be

CONFERENCES

organized directly after the conference for those PhD candidates that are looking for an intense period of reflection with their peers and a team of professors. The websites www.ice-conference.org and www.nitim.org will reflect all this. • The 2nd edition of IEEE TEMS flagship TEMSCON 2018 in June 28–30 in Chicago is well underway, chaired by Mark Werwath, with as theme Engineering Management in an Era of Disruption. The website www. temscon.org is getting regular updates. The program is emerging as the CfP is expected to be available soon. • E-TEMS 2018, our TEMSCON Fall Edition 2018, in The Netherlands is progressing and lead of Beverly Pasian from the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, with further support of the TU Eindhoven, Leiden University and others. The theme is developing towards Smart Society: Shared Purpose and Diversity. Current outlook is the venue city will be Utrecht with end of October, beginning of November as a planning date. The draft CfP is being worked upon as I write, and will soon be published. • 2018 will also see a new conference, Int’l Conference on Technology Management, Operations and Decisions (ICTMOD 2018) with the theme Digital Innovation and Business Transformation. This will be held in Nov 21–23 2018 in Marrakech, Morocco. It was the result of ongoing discussions after SIIE 2017 had to be cancelled (2017 International Conference on Information Systems and Economic Intelligence / IEEE International Technology Management Conference (SIIE/ITMC)). Work is under development and chaired by Mourad Oubrich.

• Plans for next year editions of ICDIM 2018 and ICMSE 2018 will come about soon too, as those conferences have just ended.

Work for 2019 is also progressing The plan for TEMSCON 2019 in Atlanta Georgia is being worked upon too under the leadership of Stephen Cross. Plans for E-TEMS 2019 is under development under the leadership of of Brendan Galbraith. Plans for ICE/ITMC 2019 are under discussions with the ICE board since the board meeting of 2016, in particular as it will be an anniversary 25th edition. Current directions point us to the south of France where also the first edition was held.

New Proposals We look forward to receive new proposals for conferences that align to the field of interest of our Society. But also for organizations willing to lead for example TEMSCON 2020, 2021, 2022. To that end we will soon publish a Call for Proposals on Conferences, outlining the expectations we have for such proposals.

PEOPLE

TEMS MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

PEOPLE

learn from each other, grow professionally and excel personally. That also means that TEMS members are engaged, active participants willing to make an impact. AUTHOR: MICHAEL ANDREWS

IT’S MORE THAN JUST JOINING, IT’S ENGAGEMENT. There’s an old story about the “breakfast” difference between the chicken and the pig. The chicken was involved (donating the egg) but the pig was committed (by providing the bacon). Members of the Technology and Engineering Management Society are committed! Last year the Technology and Engineering Management Society (TEMS) launched an introspective exercise. We had people look at our web site, messaging and offerings. We asked ourselves the big question “Why do we belong…?” We looked at our resources and aspirations for items that could satisfy our dreams and goals. We wore our personal and professional hats. We also put on our “conscious capitalism” hats. In addition to engaging in activities based on our values and beliefs, we emulate outstanding leaders, freely share personal resources without bias to everyone and focus on the value we can provide to others. As a result, we agreed to become the organization that answered every manager’s and leader’s questions using all of the resources TEMS could provide that would enable professionals to easily share ideas,

We believe that all IEEE members want to excel in your career, share professional experiences, learn from thought leaders or serve as a mentor to younger professionals. Whether you’re a line manager, department head, division leader or company president, the skills, business acumen and professional network influence your success. • You, as an engineering professional, want to understand what is required to lead and manage engineering, technology and innovation. • Your career growth and vitality is important. Learning to think strategically and developing a business perspective are two critical elements of your success. • You believe in networking with other professionals who have similar areas of interest, local issues and desire to share experiences. To answer your networking needs, we are providing opportunities through added publications, social media outlets, conferences, industry forums and local meet-up as some of the ways you can network with other technical professionals. Those networking opportunities include being a collaboration facilitator between leading scholars and practitioners. To help you develop or contribute, we’ve created special interest groups (Technical Activity Committees – TACs). Currently there are five TACs with more being added: 1. Social Management 2. Engineering Processes 3. Digital Enterprise Activities

PEOPLE

4. Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

• Moving product/services from idea to market

5. Project Management

• Identifying and implementing successful projects, and systems

TEMS members influence the education of engineering leaders, management of engineering, product innovation, drive design and effectively move products to market. We help drive economic growth and provide for human needs. Get engaged! TEMS members represent the spectrum of product development and production. We are people enabling product success…

• Integrating technology for capability and productivity • Developing from engineer to leader • Balancing the norms of government, and regulators

society,

ANNOUNCEMENTS

EMR: A CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

AUTHOR: JOSEPH SARKIS

The IEEE EMR, the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society (TEMS) journal of practice, will transition to original content in 2018. EMR serves those who manage technology, engineering and innovation. We encourage and seek original submissions from thought leaders in practice and academia. The intended audience of EMR includes those who: • Have an interest in management as a profession

• Manage the activities of engineers and related technology professionals • Hold managerial or strategic leadership responsibilities • Seek upward-bound opportunities as technology professionals • Prepare for leadership responsibilities in managing engineering, technology and innovation • Manage programs and projects • Operate in a global environment The EMR, a journal of practice, presents stateof-the-art thinking and practices from original contributions that are based on actual practice or strong academic theoretical foundation. EMR structure includes seven topical engineering management departments with an assigned associate editor to each; along with an associate editor for the technology manager’s notebook series. The departments are meant to support the “TEMS… people enabling product success …” vision:

Moving Product/Services from Idea to Market

Technology, Innovation Management, and Entrepreneurship (TIME)

Identifying and Implementing Successful Projects, and Systems Project Management Models and Methodologies Manufacturing and Supply Chain Systems

Integrating Technology for Capability and Productivity Information Technology

Developing from Engineer to Leader People and Organizations Leadership and Strategy

Balancing the Norms of Society, Government, and Regulators Sustainability

ANNOUNCEMENTS

We also encourage articles for the Technology Manager’s Notebook. These articles are shorter vignettes around issues concerning current engineering practice and technological developments. These items will undergo editorial and/or peer review. Regular submissions may include critical analyses, case studies, practical implications of research based empirical studies, practical applications, technology forecasting and insights from analytical modeling.

Shorter Articles and Case Studies – 20004000 words; Longer Articles and Reviews – 7500-10000 words. Submissions can be made to emr@wpi.edu. Longer articles will undergo double blind review; shorter articles will undergo editorial and/or peer review. For further information either contact: Editor-in-Chief Joseph Sarkis – emr@wpi.edu.

CALL FOR PAPERS 2018 International Conference of the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society AUTHOR: MARK W. WERWATH

TEMSCON 2018 Orrington Hilton, Evanston, IL USA, 2 blocks from Northwestern University campus, June 28–July 1, 2018

Engineering Management in an era of disruption We invite contributions from researchers, educators, managers and students. Contributions may be conceptual, theoretical, or empirical. They should document research activities, case studies or best practices, shedding light on the theory or practice of engineering, technology, or innovation management, and addressing the strategic objectives of technological change. There will be an opportunity to publish in IEEE Engineering Management Review as well as a Special Issue of our journal IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management for selected papers submitted to the conference.

Major topic areas include: • • • • • • • • • •

Entrepreneurship and its ecosystem Management of innovation Technology and engineering management Strategy and global markets New manufacturing and supply chain systems Biotech and healthcare innovation Information technology and the internet Social issues, sustainability, energy and infrastructure Executive leadership, people and organizations Special topic area: impact of disruptive technologies on management

In addition to these core topics, we have special sessions on management during these challenging times as seen by IEEE societies. For topic details, see us at www.temscon.org. We will also be hosting: Education programs in technology and engineering management Speakers and panels on disruptive technologies and business and managerial practices Tours of Chicago area technology and innovation centers Editor’s Panel – publication outlets in technology and engineering management This event will include an Industry Forum on Technology Management Challenges in today’s world-June 29, 2018

Organizing Committee: Important Dates: Paper Submission Due: 1 December 2017 Early Bird Registration Begins: 15 January 2018 Notification of Acceptance: 1 February 2018 Author Registration Due: 15 March 2018 Regular Registration: 15 March thru 20 June 2018 Hotel Block Deadline: 7 June 2018

General Co-Chairs: Mark Werwath, TEMS VP of Publications, Bakul Banerjee, Chair of TEMS Chicago Chapter Program Co-Chairs: Peggy Matson, Northwestern University, Jason Hui, BAE Systems For additional information, visit the conference web page at www.temscon.org

MANAGEMENT

THE NEW MORAL AUTHORITY: SOCIAL MEDIA

MANAGEMENT

AUTHOR: MARK W. WERWATH

There was a time when the prevailing thought, taught in most business and law schools was that the sole purpose of business was to maximize the return for the shareholders. In many ways, it was thought that this was the one and only metric for business success. Ironically, prior to twenty years ago, business schools taught that a business does not exist in a vacuum and therefore every business should strive to balance the needs of all the stakeholders. The list of stakeholders was comprehensive and included the employees, the shareholders, the customers, the suppliers, the environment and the community. The shift to being bottom line oriented was based on the idea that once you have maximized the return, the shareholders can allocate the proceeds as they see fit. The term, corporate social responsibility emerged from this new paradigm as a counterbalance. In my mind it was invented to restore the legitimate needs of the

various stakeholders described above. It was intended to remind corporations that their legacy goes far beyond how much money they make and extends to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;footprintâ&#x20AC;? they leave behind in society and the world. Some recent examples include Chipotle, a company with a grand tradition of delivering real food to its customers, without extensive use of food science or preservatives, focusing on organic and natural foods. Ironically they violated much of that trust as some of the food poisoning cases started to come out as their business had scaled to tremendous levels. A focus on social responsibility has served other companies very well including Whole Foods, a company that takes CSR very seriously. One of the original CSR focused companies was Ben and Jerryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, a company that made it a point to source product locally and to deliver product responsibly. Coming from Vermont, it seems consistent with the values that come from that state. Another recent example is KIND, the granola bar company that attempts to be kind to your body and the planet at the same time. Most of these examples are from 5 to 15 years old. So what is different today? Today CSR has a much broader reach and more instantaneous impact on the culture. Why did so many companies ditch their white house council appointments so quickly after the Charlottesville incident? Why did so many companies fret about their brand and the potential impact that association with these councils might have? I believe one big factor is the social movements that can literally arise in a matter of a few days that is enabled by the internet and social media. An excellent article on this topic can be found here: h t t p : // w w w. m s n . c o m /e n - z a / m o n e y / n e w s /a n a l y s i s - s a - s o c i a l - m e d i a - i s giving-consumers-power-to- disciplinecorporations/ar-AAqsvTf

MANAGEMENT

What this means is that social media can act almost as a near instantaneous crowd sourced policeman for the actions or inactions of corporations, especially when it comes to actions in the limelight. This can be political, or it can be related to their products, services or corporate ethics. There was a time, about 5 years ago, that the internet was little more than an electronic means of distributing content that would otherwise be in print. Product launches could be easily foiled by an internet review that was unfavorable in any way. Products could be killed, almost overnight for lack of a positive review from the thought leading websites. Today, that part of the process is less random and better architected by product launch teams, but what seems to be the new random variable is controlling and harnessing the power of social media. The impact of social media goes well beyond the traditional product launch and the review sites and magazines and can go to virtually every word and every decision made in the boardroom. Now it is no longer product launches that are at stake but the reputations of entire companies and their CEOs. By policing corporations, the influence of social media can echo through the entire culture, affecting government, other businesses, NGOs and individual responses. Is it possible that social media is becoming the conscience of America? While corporations are often vilified for their selfserving decisions and actions, the flip side is that corporations are listening much more to the echo chamber of social media and they can scientifically determine if a course of action can or will impact their short and long term market potential. Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s companies can longer sit on the sidelines and watch the culture wars unfold as if society was external to the corporation. They can no

longer allow themselves to get swept up in the media frenzy that can ensue. They must be leaders and claim their ground quickly and decisively. Millennials make their home on social media. Millennials are, in many cases, determining the fate of many industries and businesses. This is serious stuff that todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s CEO canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ignore. Many articles have been written on the business impact that millennials are having on a wide range of businesses. Here is a link to a few that might be of interest: h t t p s : // f i n a n c e .y a h o o . c o m / n e w s / psychologically-scarred-millennials-killingdozens-165006423.html h t t p: // w w w. c h r o n . c o m /n a t i o n a l / ar ticle/Millennials-are -killing-these industries-11203547.php h t t p: // w w w. m a r ke t w a t c h .c o m / stor y/5 -industries-that-millennials-aredestroying-2014-06-21 While it is easy to blame the millennial generation, the truth is the fault lies with those companies, CEOs and marketing departments that ignore social media and its huge impact to their own peril. It is no longer enough to have a good product at a fair price, companies can rise and fall on the values they portray and the image they craft on various outlets including social media.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SUCCESS

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

AUTHOR: MARK W. WERWATH

I was able to attend an excellent talk from one of our alumni CEOs who started by saying that no project is impossible. To be honest those words truly bothered me. As a clinical professor of project management and as a former director of project management for more than 20 years, my experience told me that some projects are stillborn, they have no chance to succeed in development. Are some projects simply set up to fail? Let me step back. All projects have a few things in common: specified scope, resources and allocated schedule. I often worked in environments that were obsessed with the scheduled launch date. I often replied that if we were so focused on the launch of a new product, why didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t we start development sooner or perhaps add additional resources? All projects play the dangerous game of balancing scope, schedule and resources. In the world of agile development, these decisions are made in real time, on a constant basis and with the client and development team mutually involved in trade off decisions. This is a healthy thing. We all know we can jettison scope in exchange for accelerated schedules. I am

sure we are all guilty of this: drop a handful of features in order to get the product out the door. If this is so simple, then why are so many dates missed and so many product launches failed? I can think of several failed launches in the past few years: Amazon Fire phone was a market failure, while the Boeing 787 was a huge market success and a significantly late and over-budget airplane project (which is not typical for Boeing, a company that runs like a well-oiled machine). We are watching as TESLA readies the launch of model 3. I am of course asking rhetorical questions. There are many answers for why projects fail. The point of this article is to discuss whether project success can be formulaically guaranteed. Is there no such thing as an impossible project? Can every project succeed if simply given sufficient resources and managerial support and clarity of expectations? Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reflect on the APOLLO program. JFK himself set out the objective: land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth in roughly 7.5 years. As we all know, this country was able to achieve that extraordinary goal. While significant money was spent, it was not a limitless pool of resource, after all we fought in Vietnam and had many other priorities in the 1960s. My question is: Why 7.5 years? Why not 4 years or 3 years? Would those have not been impossible goals? Does anyone believe we would have succeeded with a schedule goal that was cut in half? In 1966, halfway into the Apollo program, the program suffered a major setback with the explosion of Apollo 1 and the tragic loss of 3 astronauts on the ground. The word at NASA was: they were moving too fast and starting to get sloppy with safety issues, they had to slow down to ultimately hit their goals. Where do the goals come from? How do you set goals that are realistic, achievable,

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

meaningful and challenging? Nobody wants a bunch of bored engineers, nobody wants a product launched late into a market place, nor does anyone want to burn out your engineering staff to the point they start leaving the project, leaving the company or making mistakes that affect quality, safety or marketability. The ability to set goals that meet this criteria is an art-form that few companies perfect. Compounding this issue is the ever increasing project complexity and the increased speed and highly intense competition in almost all industries making most project goals non-negotiable and market driven. Many CEOs believe that project success is 100% dependent on the quality and passion and intensity of the people involved. Sheer will can overcome any obstacle. The sports analogy is: every game can be won, if the players have the will to make it happen. If it was just a matter of will, I am sure many more projects would have succeeded. The

lack of will, in the mind of many engineers can come from the concern that the goals are impossible and the expectations are unrealistic. After the speech, I took the CEO aside and asked her a basic question: Is there really no such thing as an impossible project? Does she really believe that? Because if she did I could give her hundreds of examples where projects were virtually impossible, in hindsight. The response from the CEO, when I confronted her privately, was that she agreed that some projects are not set up for success. Those that are set up properly have a chance to succeed, in the end it still boils down to the people involved, their will, their skill, their determination and tenacity to make it happen. Here is a link to an excellent article on the success factors for projects written by Jeffery Pinto: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ document/6498856/

TECHNOLOGY

ROBOT PROOFING YOUR FUTURE

TECHNOLOGY

AUTHOR: MARK W WERWATH

Those of us who have worked in the field of automation and robotics realize that we are entering a new golden age. The original golden age of robots, from the 1970s and early 1980s, was due in large part to articulated arm robots that had limited functionality but were able to do repetitive tasks in an open loop fashion at relatively high speed and decent quality. They were also able to take on the dangerous tasks that would otherwise put humans in harm’s way. Companies like GM invested heavily only to find the returns were less than planned and they eventually backed out much of the 1970s era of automation while applying Lean techniques to more human based work settings. While this was generally a good thing for industry, it did displace a few workers and also create opportunities for technicians and engineers in the automation fields. We learned a lot from this first golden age. Today’s robots are literally stepping out of the factories and into nearly every facet of society. These are complex adaptive systems with capabilities to interact with the environment around them and to solve problems in real time, not simply acting out a

tightly choreographed script. These systems can interact with humans in a variety of ways. We now see automation in restaurants with order taking computers (Newark airport seemed to have a high density of this technology). We see robots taking our money at the tollways, filling our soda cups at McDonalds, dispensing cash at the ATMs and now filing our taxes for us and giving us financial advice (see https://www.betterment. com/). Most commercial aircraft today have nearly 100% of the flying process automated. Is there any industry that won’t be affected by automation? For engineers, coding has been a lucrative field for many decades, what happens when coding itself is automated? Some of this is already happening in various environments. Autonomous driving may impact the millions of drivers who make their living by driving a vehicle. In the US alone there are 11 million registered heavy trucks. Joseph Aoun, an MIT professor, in his recent book, Robot Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, discusses many ways higher education (and hence all of us) can robot proof our future careers. He discusses some of the key elements that need to change in our approach to education, including: The need for lifelong learning. You will hear me mention this many times in and around the classroom. If our education effectively ends at 25 or 30 years of age, then what will become our personal “value proposition” to our employers? Will our knowledge and skills continually decline as the workplace demands more from us every day? The information world is exploding and we all have a duty to at least try to keep up, especially in our own fields of interest. The need to know how things work, both mechanically and electronically. Engineers are very well equipped for this type of knowledge.

TECHNOLOGY

To understand coding and analytics, to understand what can be done and how insights can be derived in the digital world and how analytics can lead to false conclusions if one isn’t careful. At the intersection of #2 and #3 is the world of the internet of things. IOT promises to be one of the next trillion dollar industries combining sensor technology with communications and analytics. To understand people and how they think and how they work and operate. You can call it behavioral economics but it is much more than that. The field of behavioral economics is extremely fast moving and fascinating as some of the research seems to invalidate conventional wisdom and intuition. This

field attempts to describe how humans are “predictably irrational” (reference Daniel Early’s recent book by the same name). I suppose it is easy to catastrophize as has been done in the past. Rest assured as old jobs become obsolete new jobs get created. We all need to stay flexible and well trained to step into the new opportunities that are arising every day. Who would have thought that thousands of people make a living today by blogging? While others make a living developing and posting videos on Youtube? We will need to continually ask ourselves what value we can bring to the marketplace and how to best monetize this value. This is the essence of the entrepreneurial journey.

EDITORIAL

AUTHOR: RAJIV SABHERWAL

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT EDITORIAL FOR NOVEMBER 2017 ISSUE

EDITORIAL

1. Announcements I am grateful to the journal’s Department Editors and Editorial Review Board members, as well as the ad hoc reviewers, who all contribute to the timely decisions on manuscripts. We strive to have a 60-day turnaround time and to make a final decision with one or two rounds of revisions. However, we do sometimes encounter delays, and for this I apologize to all the affected authors. I thank the authors for the papers submitted to the journal, for making revisions in a timely and effective fashion, and for their patience in case a review is delayed. We accept about 20% of the papers we receive, but hope that the authors of the rejected papers also receive valuable suggestions for improving the papers as they target other journals. Tyson Browning, the Department Editor for Review Articles, has stepped down from this role. I am grateful to Tyson for his excellent contributions to the Transactions over the years. I also welcome Claudia Eckert, who has served as an Editorial Review Board member for some time, and will be the next Department Editor for Review Articles. We also welcome 40 new members of the Editorial Review Board: Anant Mishra, Barney Tan, Carol Hsu, Chee Wee Tan, Chunguang Bai, Claudia Rosales, Daniel Chen, David Wynn, Dev Dutta, Franck Marle, Guangzhi Shang, Gulru Ozkan-Seely, Helena Barnard, Hongmin Li, Jafar Rezaei, James Cordeiro, Jennifer Pazour, Jiho Yoon, Jonathan Ye, Kaushik Sinha, LaDonna Thornton, Martin Hoegl, Michel Alexandre Cardin, Michelle Carter, Nick Hajli, Nuria Forcada, Pankaj Patel, Qianqian (Ben) Liu, Riccardo Mogre, Shu Han, Shun Ye, Soren Wandahl, Stephen Teo, Steven Eppinger, Taha Havakhor, Xitong Li, Yimin Wang, Young Lee, Yu Tong, and Zach Steelman. I would like to thank these

individuals for taking on this responsibility, as well as to the individuals who are continuing on the Editorial Review Board. However, the following 41 individuals are rotating off the board: Andy Davies, Ann McFadyen, Ansi Käki, Aravind Chandrasekaran, Benjamin Campbell, Choi Young Rok, Chon Abraham, Chris Craighead, Craig A Hill, Erk Jan Hultink, Francisco Polidoro, Fred Niederman, Hasan Cavusoglu, Heng Xu, Hock Hai Teo, In Hyeock Lee, Janice Carillo, Janice Thomas, Jason Thatcher, Jennifer Ryan, Marguerite Schneider, Martin Hemmert, Mary Lacity, Mathew Liberatore, Michael Santoro, Oliver Alexy, Paul Olk, Ronald L. Hess, Ruud Teunter, Scott Gibson, Sue Brown, Susana G Azevedo, Terri Griffith, Tugrul Daim, Vivek Choudhury, Wenming Chung, William Stewart, Willow Sheremata, Xiaobu Wu, Xiaohong Quan, and Yuliang (Oliver) Yao. I am grateful to each of these individuals for their excellent service to the journal. Finally, I am grateful to all the subscribers and readers of the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management over the years. I invite you to complete the reader survey included in this issue (http://surveys.ieee.org/ wix/p3071293413.aspx), and also to email me about any suggestions or concerns.

2. Special Issues Proposals for special issues on topics of current interest in engineering, technology, and innovation management are always welcome. Please send a brief description of the concept for the issue to me (sabherwal@ ieee.org). I will circulate it to department editors, and if the initial response is favorable, I will request a specific plan and more detailed information to be used in the final decision about proceeding with the special issue.

EDITORIAL

3. Online Submission and Review System The journal office currently experiences many returned e-mails via the journal’s online system. Since e-mails are used to communicate with corresponding authors, coauthors, and reviewers during the review process, it is very important for users to keep updating their accounts in the system. Please login to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ tem-ieee to update your contact information when you change your e-mail addresses. New users are also welcome to create their own accounts in the system. Also, please be sure that the SPAM filters on your own servers are set to receive mail from Manuscript Central. The journal’s online server should be whitelisted to mark it as a valid e-mail sender: 170.107.181.135.

4.About This Issue This issue of the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management includes fifteen research articles. The relevance and usefulness of the articles is summarized below: “An Empirical Study of the Telecommunications Service Industries Using Productivity Decomposition” (by Shao, Lin, and Tsai): This paper provides managerial insights into the output performance of the telecommunications service industry. Unlike many other services industries, telecommunications service industry is innovative at facilitating novel services as outputs (i.e., product innovations) and new ways of delivering these services (i.e., process innovations). The authors’ decomposition of Malmquist TFP index shows that many countries operate inefficiently and lag

behind leading peers. That is, lagging countries are hard pressed to catch up with leaders. Further, telecommunications service industry must cope with the issue of fluctuating market demands that have an adverse impact on productivity. The authors also find that telecommunications service industries in OECD countries show notable productivity growth; technology innovation is the main factor responsible for the observed productivity growth; the inhibitors are efficiency change and scale change; and the productivity is influenced by the changing market dynamics of the telecommunications service industry. “Middle Managers’ Engagement in Autonomous Strategic Actions: Does it Really Matter How Top Mangers Use Budgets” (by Linder and Torp): Budgets are one of the most widely used management tools in organizations. Several conceptual articles claim that the way in which budgets are used influences the level of a particular type of intrapreneurship: middle managers’ autonomous strategic actions (ASA). This type of intrapreneurship focuses on new business opportunities by introducing new products to new markets. This paper suggests an interactive way of using budgets to foster such entrepreneurial behaviors. Since fostering middle managers’ entrepreneurial behavior is a key concern for many established firms today, and as managers can choose the way in which they use budgets, testing these claims empirically has high practical importance for advising engineering management. The authors draw on a broad sample of large Danish firms to test these claims for the use of annual budgets. In contrast to views advanced in conceptual literature, the results suggest that the way annual budgets are used does not significantly impact the level of ASA. Rather, it is boundary systems and middle managers’

EDITORIAL

autonomy which significantly affect the level of such intrapreneurship. The findings thus provide advice to engineering managers on where to look in order to promote entrepreneurial behaviors.

“Equilibrium Analysis of Markup Pricing Strategies under Power Imbalance Supply Chain Competition” (by Wang, Hua, Wang, and Lai): Markup pricing policies have been widely employed in the retailing industry. Typically, there are two variations of markup pricing policies, namely, fixeddollar markup and percentage markup, most commonly used in practice. However, it is unclear why certain markup pricing policy is used in some industry while the other is not? Is it because the manager is not aware of possible better alternatives, or is it because different alternatives have already been considered and the implemented one is indeed the best for the situation? This study intends to fill the literature gap by giving answers to these questions. The findings indicate that the company, that wants to apply the results

to determine which markup variant to use, should first recognize its position in the markup (price-leader or price-follower) and then identify the degree of the supply chain-to-chain competition. Besides, as an unexpected by-product, the findings also show that the retailer should be cautions when exerting the market power because such power might result in a ”first-mover” disadvantage even under a linear demand curve in some common situation. “Economic, Environmental, and Social Impact of Remanufacturing in a Competitive Setting” (by Raz, Ovchinnikov, and Blass): In recent years, many productservice firms started using remanufactured products to extend their product lines. For example, communication firms such as AT&T that sell phones together with voice and data plans introduced refurbished phones in their product line, while companies such as HP that sell printers and cartridges introduced refurbished printers in their product line. Remanufacturing enables firms to extend the useful life of their products, diverts items from the waste stream, and allows some consumers to upgrade from lowerend new products to higher-end refurbished ones. While all these elements intuitively have environmental benefits, several recent studies suggested that remanufacturing may actually worsen firms’ environmental impact. To what extent this would hold under competition, however, is unclear. Using a data-driven model, this paper examines the impact of remanufacturing on the product line competition of product-service firms. The authors show that while remanufacturing in a product-service context under competition might increase environmental impact and cost due to market expansion, it is highly profitable for firms and in addition, lower prices and market expansion, create additional consumer surplus. Thus, overall,

EDITORIAL

remanufacturing creates a significant societal benefit. Examining the robustness of their results, the authors show even if the present-dollar equivalent of environmental externality is below the true societal cost, their qualitative result is quite robust and remanufacturing is beneficial to society. To better understand the source of impacts, they disaggregate the total welfare into a portion attributed to the production stage (firm-oriented) and that attributed to the use phase (consumer-oriented) and find that both firm and consumer impacts improved when remanufacturing is introduced. This suggests that the overall positive social welfare is not affected by one agent or stage, but rather, welfare improvements occur with both firms and consumers. “In-Store Pickup and Online Returns for a Dual Channel Retailer” (by Mahar and Wright): Offering in-store pickup and return of online sales is an important consideration for dual channel retailers. Most retailers adopt an all-or-nothing strategy without truly understanding the costs and benefits. This paper helps managers understand the cost-benefit of offering the services but also gives guidance on which locations should be set up for in-store pickup and returns. This is important since it is typically not optimal to offer these services at all locations. The computational results show that optimizing the set of pickup and return locations can reduce system cost by up to 20% on average over arbitrarily enabling all store locations with Internet pickup and return capabilities. Furthermore, placing even a small emphasis on customer value in the pickup/return decision can yield relatively large rewards to the customer. Practically, this suggests that firms can significantly increase customer value while maintaining cost minimization as an important selection criterion in choosing pickup/return locations.

Understanding these relationships and tradeoffs help managers make better decisions for their organizations.

“Affinely Adjustable Robust Model for Multi-Period Production Planning under Uncertainty” (by Kim and Chung): Production planning under uncertainty becomes an important issue in practices and academia. Recently, several robust optimization approaches have been proposed and applied in various areas to address the demand uncertainty, especially when known probability distribution is not available. The models and results in this paper are informative for decision makers who are responsible for production planning and operations management as follows: The paper develops a static robust counterpart (RC) for a ‘here and now’ decision and an affinely adjustable robust counterpart (AARC) for a ‘wait and see’ decision. Both models are reformulated as equivalent linear programming problems, which are computationally tractable. The numerical experiments provide some general insights

EDITORIAL

for production planning under uncertainty: (1) the price of robustness is significant when the RC is applied. That is, the RC is too conservative to be employed in practice even if the solution feasibility is improved; (2) the AARC provides a solution that is less sensitive to uncertain demand; and (3) the AARC is a better strategy for the multi-period production planning problem under uncertainty, especially when penalty cost due to lost sales is high and unknown demand is expected to be left skewed. The study’s results are expected to be applicable to wide range of multi-period problems in other industries. “Multi-Criteria Green Supplier Segmentation” (by Bai, Rezaei, and Sarkis): Green supplier segmentation is important for organizations to build and improve existing green supplier management strategies and activities. This paper builds on traditional supplier segmentation approaches and strategies which organizations use to plan and manage their suppliers. Tools have been developed and applied for this important managerial process, however little attention has been paid to incorporating environmental and sustainability elements into them. With these additional factors, a novel methodology decision support and management tool for green supplier segmentation is introduced. Companies that utilize this methodology can more easily manage a large number of suppliers by formulating business and environmental relationship management strategies for subsets of suppliers. Supplier segmentation is an efficient way to help organizations target green supplier strategies. The most direct outcome of this study is that the segmentations can be effective for identifying three heterogeneous greening of supplier strategies. Each segment has practical managerial considerations to help

organizations green their supply partners and supply chain. “Information Seeking in Online Healthcare Communities: The Dual Influence from Social Self and Personal Self” (by Liu, Tong, and Chan): The emergence of various forms of online healthcare communities has attracted and motivated numerous users with health concerns to seek comprehensive health information in such platforms. Similar to other types of online communities, online healthcare communities comprise both active users who post frequently and inactive users who seldom participate in the community. A clear understanding on how active and inactive users are motivated to seek information in online healthcare communities is lacking; yet it can provide community managers with a reference for establishing strategic guidelines. Through an empirical study investigating the propensity to seek health information for both active and inactive users in online healthcare communities, this study finds that the community-related factor and individual factor motivate the two groups of users differently. Community managers are suggested to implement mechanisms to detect active and inactive users, and design several activities to improve the sense of belonging of members and improve their positive emotional attachment to the community. Mechanisms can also be deployed to capture the health severity of users. Based on the finding of the study, community managers should provide inactive users with adequate information that would allow them to understand other users. “On the Robust and Stable Flowshop Scheduling under Stochastic and Dynamic Disruptions” (by Liu, Wang, Hong, and Yue): Surgical operating room scheduling

EDITORIAL

process is typically modelled as a flowshop problem. When hospitals have to confront economic pressure (e.g., operations budget cut) and resource constraints (e.g., shortage of doctors and nurses), increasing surgical room utilization becomes immediately important. On the one hand, surgery cost is often very high to hospitals due to high turnover rate of medical equipment and surgical materials. On the other hand, patients are usually in emergency situations so that they cannot afford waiting a long time for the surgical operations. In such scheduling process, the surgical operating time is stochastic or uncertain, while the new patient arrivals can be considered dynamic events. When hospital managers generate baseline schedules for the operating rooms, stochastic situation must be considered. Likewise, when new patients arrive in the middle of a schedule, managers often have to reschedule the subsequent operations and/ or patients according to the new information. The paperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flowshop scheduling model and algorithm could help hospital managers make better decisions under the uncertain and dynamic circumstances.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dynamic Capability and Firm Performance: The Role of Marketing Capability and Operations Capabilityâ&#x20AC;? (by Mu): Dynamic capability, marketing capability, and operations capability are all important for firms to achieve superior performance. However, a critical, unresolved issue that research has yet to address involves the relationship between the role of dynamic capability, marketing capability, and operations capability on firm performance. The results of this study suggest that the seemingly non-radical marketing and operations capabilities can produce tangible results such as improved firm performance and tangible products that seem impossible in the short run but possible in the long haul. The results indicate that dynamic capability contributes to the achievement of superior firm performance by renewing marketing and operations capabilities which in turn affect performance. Moreover, the findings suggest that dynamic capability provides direction for changes in marketing and operations capabilities whereas marketing and operations capability provide situation-specific changes that underlie dynamic capability. Dynamic,

EDITORIAL

marketing, and operations capabilities synergistically undergird an enterprise’s capacity to successfully innovate and capture sufficient value to deliver superior long-term performance outcomes. “A New Methodology for Mining Frequent Itemsets on Temporal Data” (by Ghorbani and Abessi): Temporal data contain timestamping information affecting the results of data mining. In this study, the authors attempt to improve efficiency of frequent itemsets dealing with temporal data. Finding such temporal patterns can help managers to make decision more dynamically. For example, managers can define policies about location, replenishment, and inventory of items in different periods of time. Such capability which is achieved by the authors’ proposed algorithm can improve the performance of managerial decisions at any level significantly. “Understanding Content Voting Based on Social Foraging Theory” (by Xu, Shen, and Chan): This study offers important insights into the effective use of content voting systems. First, it is crucial to cultivate such belief among community members that it is their duty to help each other and to advance the community. Second, managers of a news community should raise members’ identification with the community. They can and should allow their news presentation to be dynamically influenced by the members’ votes. As in social foraging, votes provide a way for members to actively influence the information consumption of other members. “A New Optimization Model for Reliable Team Formation Problem Considering Experts’ Collaboration Network” (by Fathian, Saei-Shahi, and Makui): This paper proposes a model to maximize the reliability of project teams. The aim of the paper is to

provide managers of projects with functions or processes, required for the formation of a reliable and efficient team. The model focused on finding a reliable team of project experts who, in addition to providing a certain number of skills, formed the best collaboration network. The proposed model can help the project manager in the formation of a reliable team by selecting a backup for each unreliable team member. This issue can be very important when the team is working on the topic of healthcare such as surgery and the absence of any team member could be very critical. Artificial and real-life collaboration networks have also been presented for practical use. The proposed optimization model is expected to be useful and applicable to problems of team formation in projects with experts of various spheres of knowledge. “People, Technologies, and Organizations Interactions in a Social Commerce Era” (by Hajli, Wang, Tajvidi, and Hajli): This paper considers the emergent ‘social commerce’ imperative which enables users to generate intensive content and engage commercially with providers through social networking systems. The business value of adopting social commerce practices for digital enterprises has long been recognized, but most organizations, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, continue to struggle to gain significant benefits from their investment in social commerce. It is apparent that as yet limited research has sought to address the need to build a better understanding of consumer adoption behaviors related to social commerce. Such an understanding can offer organizations new insights for reinforcing their social commerce services. This study integrates both social and technical enablers of social commerce into

EDITORIAL

the technology acceptance model (TAM) to better understand how consumer intentions to purchase function in social commerce environments. The results not only inform organizations about the importance of being aware of the impact of social media within a commercial context, they also help systems designers and engineers rethink the way they reinforce the features of social commerce platforms to attract consumersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; attention and thus convert existing visitors into buyers for sales growth. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Uncertainty, Adaptation, and Alliance Performanceâ&#x20AC;? (by Jiang, Jiang, Arino, and Peng): This paper conceptualizes alliance adaptations as a bundle of governance-based change practices in a given alliance, including contractual alterations, ownership change, board change, monitoring mechanism change, and key personnel turnover. This more comprehensive treatment extends our understanding of alliance adaptations

by providing alliance managers with novel insights on how to manage alliance postformation dynamics. Specifically, the authors analyze the uncertainty-related drivers of alliance adaptations and provide evidence that alliance managers should undertake extensive alliance adaptations when demand uncertainty and behavioral uncertainty are at a high level. At the same time, the results warn alliance managers that they should avoid undertaking frequent and complicated governance adaptation activities when facing a high level of technological uncertainty. Moreover, while undertaking moderate adaptation activities may benefit alliance firms, such adaptations do not always improve alliance performance. To achieve superior alliance performance, alliance managers should consider developing strong alliance management capability to strengthen the positive effect of alliance adaptations.