Giovanna Lo Nigro

Negotiation in distributed production planning environments

Mass customization and global competition push enterprises to adopt proper business models able to capture all the opportunities arising from emerging competition rules. An increasing number of industrial enterprises distribute their production capacity world wide to achieve lower production costs, lower distribution costs (due to the closer proximity to customers), and deeper knowledge of customer needs. As a drawback, coordination of the different production plants and the balance among plants and enterprise goals represent a critical issue in the network management. In this context the paper looks at the production planning problem, adopting a traditional hierarchical time-based perspective in the analysis of the global process and suggesting a decentralized planning approach to deal with the originated subtasks related to different time horizons. In particular, the paper suggests a production planning architecture able to highlight relationships among subtasks’ variables in which mechanisms assure consistency among solutions of different planning levels. Moreover, the paper proposes negotiation frameworks as effective tools to manage production planning subtasks.

Long term capacity decisions in uncertain markets for advanced manufacturing systems incorporating scope economies

Abstract By examining the literature in the field of manufacturing flexibility many researchers have located several form of flexibility by distinguishing them into strategic and operational flexibility forms. Furthermore, many measures and design methods have been proposed for flexible manufacturing systems. Surely scope economies are one of the most important strategic form of flexibility in manufacturing systems and their strategic impact has been acknowledged by the very beginning of the flexible manufacturing era. However, despite several researches are available to address scope economies measurement and design methodologies, very few researches investigate their economic convenience in front of dedicated manufacturing systems depending on the competitive market conditions. This paper proposes a theoretical model whose main aim is the general understanding of the convenience conditions of scope economies-based manufacturing systems. The results of the theoretical model are very interesting, because they locate market conditions that make scope economies manufacturing systems less profitable than dedicated manufacturing ones; moreover, the proposed model sets some general criteria to guide the entrepreneur in making right investment decision regarding this kind of manufacturing investments. Such results can explain the reason of many failures of flexible manufacturing systems and it suggests the use of this kind of approach to investigate other flexibility forms of manufacturing systems. The ultimate goal of this research is the construction of a Decision Support System for supporting the entrepreneur in making decision on Advanced Manufacturing Systems investment decisions.

Drivers influencing the governance of inter-firm relationships in the biopharmaceutical industry: an empirical survey in the Italian context

This paper focuses on factors influencing the choice of the governance form in inter-firm relationships (IFRs) between pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. By reviewing the relevant literature on transaction cost economics, property right theory, real option and resources-based view, we located some drivers that might influence such relationships and we formulated a set of hypotheses linking them to governance forms. Such a theoretical framework has been empirically tested through a survey conducted among the Italian companies associated to Farmindustria. Empirical results provide some interesting insights on how shaping bio-pharmaceutical deals; we found that the developmental stage of the product/technology object of the agreement, the existence of previous collaborations between firms and the number of products marketed by the biotech company are able to influence the selection of a specific governance form.

Biopharmaceutical Alliances And Competition: A Real Options Games Approach

The competitive landscape where pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies operate has changed radically due to a scientific/technological progress that has revolutionised the process by which drugs are developed. In fact, pharmaceutical industry more and more relies on advances in biochemistry and molecular biology. As a consequence, the number of partnerships between pharmaceutical and biotech firms has grown significantly. Research contributions addressing the biopharmaceutical alliances design have also focused on the optimal timing to sign a partnership. In this paper, we introduce and analyse the effect of competition in biotechnology industry by modelling the decisions of whether and when ally with a pharmaceutical company through a real options game. We find that the timing decisions depend on the level of the competition, synergies obtained through the alliance and contract terms offered by the pharmaceutical company as well. Also, we show that the first mover might not always pre-empt the follower in partnering with the pharmaceutical company.

A real options game of alliance timing decisions in biopharmaceutical research and development

In this article we examine the alliance timing trade-off facing both pharmaceutical and biotech firms in a stochastic and competitive environment. Specifically, we introduce a real options game (ROG), where a pharmaceutical company can choose between two competing biotech firms by sequentially offering a licensing deal early or late in the new drug development process. We find that, when the alliance raises the drug market value significantly, the agreement is signed late in the drug development process. This suggests that the postponement effect implied by the use of real options prevails over the biotech firms’ competition effect, which would instead play in favor of an early agreement for pre-emption reasons. When the alliance does not raise the drug market value significantly, the optimal timing depends on the level of royalties retained by the pharmaceutical company. In particular, an early agreement is signed in the presence of a low level of royalties. In this case, indeed, the competition effect becomes predominant because the pharmaceutical company can substantially reduce the upfront payment and thus the potential loss incurred if the biotech partner does not exercise her option to continue the new drug development process. We also show that the alliance timing outcomes of our real options game considerably differ from those obtained when both parties use the net present value (NPV) to assess their payoffs.

Negotiation models in manufacturing e-marketplaces

This chapter describes the negotiation model adopted by the Customer and Supplier Negotiation Agents in the agent based architecture described in Chapter 2. The chapter is structured as it follows: in the first section the use of automated negotiation in modern market scenario is motivated; in the second section, starting form the contributions presented in the scientific literature, automated negotiation will be analysed and a taxonomy will be proposed. The third section is dedicated to the e-market context discussed in this book and in particular the impact of negotiation in manufacturing e-marketplaces will be stressed: its impact is strictly related to the electronic nature of e-marketplaces and to the supply chain coordination aspects of a make-to-order environment. Section four discusses the problem related to the negotiation performance evaluation. Finally, in section five we will introduce the developed negotiation model: after an overview of the agents involved in the process, the negotiation anal ytical model is presented.

Uncertain outcome presentations bias decisions: experimental evidence from Finland and Italy

Even in their everyday lives people are expected to make difficult decisions objectively and rationally, no matter how complex or uncertain the situation. In this research, we study how the format of presentation and the amount of presented information concerning risky events influence the decision-making process, and the propensity to take risk in decision makers. The results of an exploratory survey conducted in Finland and in Italy suggest that decision-making behavior changes according to the way the information is presented. We provide experimental evidence that different representations of expected outcomes create distinct cognitive biases and as a result affect the decisions made. This identified change in the perception of risk has, to the best of our knowledge, not been identified nor directly studied previously in the scientific literature. The paper thus presents novel insights into managerial decision-making that are potentially relevant for decision support theory, with implications to decision-makers and for information providers. Understanding the impact of various forms of presentation of risk is crucial in being able to convey information clearly and in a way that avoids misunderstandings. The implications of the results on being able to avoid opportunistic manipulation of decisions, are also of great concern in many application areas. Social networks are more and more frequently being used as a source of information and in this context it is crucial to acknowledge the effect that different ways of presenting and communicating risky outcomes may have on the behavior of the target group. Here presented results may, for example, be highly relevant for marketing and advertising that is conducted by using social media or social networks.

Alliance Portfolio Diversity, Organizational Slack, and Firm Financial Performance

We investigate how the availability of slack influences a firm’s ability to deal with alliance portfolio diversity. Alliances with diverse partners provide access to a broader pool of complementary...