Three Essays in Humanitarian Operations Management

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Description
Nonprofits and humanitarian organizations play a critical role in the modern world. Yet, to operate sustainably, they often encounter challenges including financial insecurity and operational obstacles. My dissertation investigates nonprofits' decisions and strategies for delivering sustainable services from the perspectives

Nonprofits and humanitarian organizations play a critical role in the modern world. Yet, to operate sustainably, they often encounter challenges including financial insecurity and operational obstacles. My dissertation investigates nonprofits' decisions and strategies for delivering sustainable services from the perspectives of financial security and operations in short- and long-term horizons.The first chapter is focused on the role of governance quality in nonprofits' donation income. Donors, generally, support charities that maintain higher program spending ratios (PSR). Yet, PSR does not reflect charities' actual social impact, and a focus on PSR may eventually limit their capacity in providing humanitarian aid. Since 2008, as a result of a policy change by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, nonprofits are able to better display their governance quality. My empirical investigation shows that governance quality is now an important factor in driving donations to nonprofits, although PSR still remains a key driver. Results suggest that nonprofits should consider improving their governance quality in their strategies for securing donation income, although that may lead to lower PSRs. Pressures resulted from the focus on PSR encourage nonprofits to prioritize strategies that enable them to report higher program expenses. In the second chapter, I empirically examine one of these strategies, grant provision, that allows nonprofits to increase their reported program expenses without having to spend their funds on their own programs. I find that providing grants to other organizations enables nonprofits to earn more revenue and make a bigger social impact in the long term, but this strategy increases the administrative burden needed to make an impact. Given the challenges in coordination and lack of effective coordinated response in humanitarian operations, in the third chapter, I develop a non-cooperative game theoretical model to analyze horizontal coordination among non-governmental organizations in disaster relief operations in centralized and decentralized models. I show that coordination does not always maximize social welfare, and time inefficiencies due to bureaucracies involved in coordination mechanisms are substantial obstacles against higher levels of coordination, especially in urgent response operations. I also show that decentralization of coordination mechanisms increases both coordination levels and social welfare.
Date Created
2022
Agent

Three Essays on Firm Responses to Climate Change

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Description

Evidence is mounting to address and reverse the effects of environmental neglect. Perhaps the greatest evidence for needing environmental stewardship originates from the ever-increasing extreme weather events ranging from the deadly wildfires scorching Greece and California to the extreme heatwaves

Evidence is mounting to address and reverse the effects of environmental neglect. Perhaps the greatest evidence for needing environmental stewardship originates from the ever-increasing extreme weather events ranging from the deadly wildfires scorching Greece and California to the extreme heatwaves in Japan. Scientists have concluded that the probability and severity for about two thirds of such extreme natural events that occurred between 2004 and 2018 is contributed by rising global temperatures.

Operations management literature regarding environmental issues have typically focused on the “win-win” approach with a multitude of papers investigating a link between sustainability and firm performance. This dissertation seeks to take a different approach by investigating firm responses to climate change. The first two essays explore firm emissions goals and the last essay investigates firm emissions performance.

The first essay identifies firm determinants of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets. The essay leverages Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTOF) and argues for two additional determinants, Data Stratification and Science-Based Targets, unique to GHG emissions. Utilizing system generalized method of moments on a dataset from Carbon Disclosure Project for years 2011-2017, the paper finds partial confirmation for BTOF and support for the two additional determinants of firm GHG emission goals.

The second essay is an exploratory study that seeks to understand factors for firm participation in the Science-Based Targets (SBT) initiative by combining both primary and secondary data analysis. The study is a working paper with primary data still needing to be completed. Secondary data analysis begins with a review of the literature which suggested four potential factors: ISO 14001 certification, Customer Engagement, Emission Credit Purchases, and presence of Absolute Emissions Targets. Preliminary results using panel logistic regression suggest that Emissions Credit Purchases and Absolute Emissions Targets influence SBT participation.

The third essay seeks to understand whether stakeholder pressure drives firm GHG emissions reductions. This relies on Stakeholder Theory and classification schemes proposed in Management literature to divide stakeholders, based on their relationship with the firm, into three groups: primary, secondary, and public. Random effects estimation results provide evidence for primary and public stakeholder pressure impacting firm GHG emissions.

Date Created
2020
Agent

Advancing Alternative Analysis: Integration of Decision Science

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Description

Background: Decision analysis—a systematic approach to solving complex problems—offers tools and frameworks to support decision making that are increasingly being applied to environmental challenges. Alternatives analysis is a method used in regulation and product design to identify, compare, and evaluate

Background: Decision analysis—a systematic approach to solving complex problems—offers tools and frameworks to support decision making that are increasingly being applied to environmental challenges. Alternatives analysis is a method used in regulation and product design to identify, compare, and evaluate the safety and viability of potential substitutes for hazardous chemicals.

Objectives: We assessed whether decision science may assist the alternatives analysis decision maker in comparing alternatives across a range of metrics.

Methods: A workshop was convened that included representatives from government, academia, business, and civil society and included experts in toxicology, decision science, alternatives assessment, engineering, and law and policy. Participants were divided into two groups and were prompted with targeted questions. Throughout the workshop, the groups periodically came together in plenary sessions to reflect on other groups’ findings.

Results: We concluded that the further incorporation of decision science into alternatives analysis would advance the ability of companies and regulators to select alternatives to harmful ingredients and would also advance the science of decision analysis.

Conclusions: We advance four recommendations: a) engaging the systematic development and evaluation of decision approaches and tools; b) using case studies to advance the integration of decision analysis into alternatives analysis; c) supporting transdisciplinary research; and d) supporting education and outreach efforts.

Date Created
2017-06-13
Agent