Waiting in line for attractions is an unavoidable part of every theme park visit. Many theme park designers have tried ways to make these waits shorter and more enjoyable. Such techniques include offering a separate ‘fast lane’ for certain Guests or creating additional load platforms for higher Guest throughput. Both the queues themselves as well as the attraction’s operation have an enormous effect on how many Guests can experience it in a day, and relatedly, how long they will have to wait for that experience. This paper will utilize both queueing theory and personal work experience to analyze the queues and operations of two attractions at the Magic Kingdom Park: the Tomorrowland Speedway and the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover. I use my own personal experience working at these attractions as well as queueing data I recorded to show areas for improvement in queue design and operations, as well as potential solutions to increase efficiency and lower operational costs.

Nonprofit operations management has gained increasing attention from both academia andpolicymakers. While the literature has focused on monetary donations, it is important to recognize that individuals also support charity organizations through volunteering and in-kind gifts. This dissertation examines the role of in-kind donations in supporting the operations of Nonprofit organizations. It is divided into three pieces: the first two investigate the relationship between individuals’ time and monetary donations, and their implications for Nonprofit operations, while the last part centers on individuals’ goods donations. The first chapter explores a fundamental question: Do volunteering activities discourage or encourage donations? While some research suggests that people view their time and financial contributions as substitutes, others believe that they should be complementary. Two controlled online experiments indicate that volunteering improves subsequent monetary donations and that, as greater effort is required, people tend to reduce their donations. These results highlight the importance of considering both the labor and financial contributions of volunteers and creating volunteer projects with an appropriate level of effort. The second chapter is about how to manage volunteers, taking into account how volunteers can be unpredictable, heterogeneous, and even donate money. The results challenge conventional knowledge in volunteer management, highlighting the need to integrate the management of volunteers and donors. Volunteers are not only suppliers of labor, but also consumers of volunteering activities. Moreover, enhancing the job efficiency of volunteers may also hinder the performance of charities. Last, the donation of goods is a vital form of supply for charities, which can be resold to generate additional revenue. However, not all in-kind gifts are useful, and unwanted donations can place a financial strain on charitable organizations. Despite this, nonprofits may hesitate to reject undesired donations for fear of discouraging future support. In response, I employ behavioral interventions to encourage donors to voluntarily increase the quality of their gifts.

Base of the pyramid (BoP) theory was posited in 2002, as a revolutionary method to combine profit and purpose. In this paper the concept of BoP is explored by delving into the development of the idea. Understanding the successes and failures of each iteration provides the opportunity to coalesce the efficacy of BoP. This leads into a dissemination of elements of successful BoP implementations. These elements establish concepts that are vital to any semblance of BoP success. Case studies then develop the complexity and nuance of BoP implementation; establishing there is no cookie-cutter formula for success. Ultimately, base of the pyramid emerges as a much more deeply complicated concept than originally suggested. Despite the ambiguity of BoP, the theory continues to be one of the most viable opportunities for correcting the inequalities of the world.

This research focuses and discusses on the Supply Chain process within the mental health industry and its impact on the center for health empowerment education employment recovery. Our first approach was to research background information on mental health sector. With 115 billion dollars on mental health treatment investment annually nationwide, many citizens continues to struggle to find help. Due to such a complex structure of specific industry, we needed to focus more specifically, Arizona. Even within Arizona, we chose one organization to discuss their complex supply chain logistic issues. Through analysis of beneficiaries, technology system, finance management, employer, many educational programs, we were able to identify possible improvements. Through utilizing Supply Chain concepts, my co-author and I came up with few solutions that can greatly benefit the organization.

Monetary contributions are a main interest for non-governmental organizations. This study focuses on identifying variables that might impact total contributions. The variables chosen for this study are diversity, coverage, efficiency, size and fundraising. These five variables are predicted to positively affect the total contributions of both government and public donors. To answer this question, financial and firm specific data from 49 non-governmental organizations were collected from 990 forms from the IRS. The dataset allowed for a time frame of ten years to evaluate what specifically influences monetary contributions. The specific control variables are net assets, number of offices in regions, and fundraising. These were tested against number of programs and the spend ratio. These are believed to positively affect contributions, and the results will lead to an operational strategy for non-governmental organizations. These hypotheses were tested with a cross sectional linear regression. As it was discovered, governments and public donors value different variables. Governments donate more to organizations with larger diversity and coverage. The public focuses on the amount of fundraising, size of the organization and efficiency.

The purpose of this honors thesis is to discover ways for a large humanitarian organization to more cost effectively manage its fleet of vehicles. The first phase of work involved cleaning the large data set provided by the organization. Next, we used the program STATA to run a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) to see which variables have the largest effect on the percentage of price decline and total mileage of each vehicle. The SUR model indicated that price decline is most influenced by cumulative minor repairs, total accessories, age, percentage of paved roads, and number of accidents. In addition, total mileage was most affected by percentage of paved roads, cumulative minor repairs, all wheel drive, and age. The final step of the project involved providing recommendations to the humanitarian organization based on the above results. We recommend several changes to their fleet management, including: driver training programs, increasing the amount of preventative maintenance performed on vehicles, and increasing the amount of accessories purchased for each vehicle. Implementing these changes could potentially save the organization millions of dollars due to the scope of its operation.