Farhad M.E. Raiszadeh

Business Students' Perceptions of Faculty Evaluations.

Students are asked to evaluate faculty on a continual basis at most universities throughout the world, yet students have varying perceptions about the purpose and usefulness of these evaluations. While research has focused on the faculty issues regarding evaluations and their use in subsequent evaluation, yearly reviews, tenure decisions, and even post‐tenure review, little research has been conducted to evaluate student feelings on the evaluations. In a case study format, a random sample of College of Business Administration students from freshman to EMBA levels was polled about their perceptions of the student ratings of faculty. The results provide interesting insights into their perceptions as well as constructive ideas on how better to administer the evaluations and publish the results. Results can benefit not only business schools but also other colleges in improving the evaluation process and linking the results to other rewards and faculty improvement mechanisms.

Virtual offices: understanding and managing what you cannot see

To achieve their business objectives, many companies are exploring varying degrees of virtuality or remote working (away from the office location), facilitated by technology. Managers have to decide when, where, and for whom such virtuality is appropriate to ensure that rewards are maximized for the staff and for the organization. This paper explores the challenges for managers in establishing virtual offices or teams. It suggests that successful virtual offices require more than just technology. They require radical new approaches to evaluating, educating, organizing and informing workers. The real challenge in maximizing the virtual experience lies in designing the organization structure and processes to achieve agreed goals.

Critical issues to consider when developing business operations in Eastern bloc countries

As companies become increasingly interested in doing business within Eastern bloc countries, ordinary issues critical to success will be of paramount importance. Although the basic principles and rationale used and the factors involved in investment decisions such as site selection will not change, the relative importance of the factors, particularly those that are intangible and constantly changing, could be drastically different. Reviews the factors to consider when venturing into these newly independent states, presents examples and offers suggestions for US firms considering Eastern bloc locations for expansion.

A Single Machine Bicriterion Scheduling Problem and an Optimizing Branch-and-Bound Procedure

Abstract This paper considers a bicritcrion scheduling problem with n jobs to be sequenced on a single machine. The objective function to be minimized is a linear Combination of range of lateness a...

An algorithm to minimize total flowtime and maximum job lateness in the two-machine flowshop system

Abstract This paper considers the dual criteria of minimizing flowtime and maximum lateness of jobs in the two-machine flowshop system. We discover the conditions that determine which of a pair of adjacent jobs in a sequence should precede the other to minimize either of the two objective functions. We also present a Branch-and-Bound procedure to arrive at an optimal solution.

Minimizing total flowtime and maximum job lateness in the twomachine flowshop system: a computerized algorithm

This paper is an improvement to an extension of a previously published paper which considered the dual criteria of minimizing flowtime and maximum lateness of jobs in the two-machine flowshop system. We discover the conditions that determine which of the pairs of adjacent jobs in a sequence should precede the other to minimize either of the two objective functions. We also present a Branch-and-Bound procedure to arrive at and optimal solution, along with a computerized example problem.

Minimizing a Quadratic Function of Job Lateness in the Single Machine System

Abstract In many real world situations, early completion of a job is equally undesirable as its late completion. In those cases, the sum of squares of job lateness may be an appropriate objective to be minimized. Gupta and Sen [1] considered the same problem where they implicitly assumed that the machine cannot be kept idle at any time. If this condition can be relaxed, then two different, problems emerge. For one of them, late start is allowed only for the first job on the machine. Once the processing of the first job is begun on the machine, no more idle time is allowed. For the other problem, not only the first job can bo started late, a gap between any two consecutive jobs is recommended, whenever that is beneficial. The insertion of idle times might, in some situations, make the schedule more efficient than the one obtained by Gupta and Sen [1]. In the present paper, we have developed an optimizing solution algorithm for the problem with only one idle, time immediately before the operation of the fir...

How can Eastern Europe help American manufacturers

The end of the Soviet Union and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States will definitely increase Western involvement in the former East Bloc countries. Recent emphasis has been placed on either developing Eastern markets or using inexpensive human capital to manufacture goods to be sold in the West. A third option does exist: the use of Eastern knowledge and technology in the West. Application of this knowledge and technology, currently not feasible in the former East Bloc because of a deficient infrastructure and lack of incentives, could be practical in the fertile environment of the West. Western firms are advised to catch up with their Japanese competitors in taking advantage of the low-risk opportunities that the break up of the Soviet Union has made available.