Vlerick Repository

• The regulatory experience of Italy and the United States with dedicated incentives for strategic electricity transmission investment

  Keyaerts, Nico; Meeus, Leonardo (Elsevier, 2017)

  There is a trend in regulatory practice towards providing dedicated incentives for strategic investments. Italy and the United States have the longest experience with authorizing returns and risk-mitigating incentives that deviate from standard regulatory treatment for policy purposes. In these countries, the regulatory incentives are based on a case-by-case assessment of capital projects. We find that the Italian scheme is simpler, which reduces administrative costs. The U.S. scheme is more advanced in the case-by-case assessment. Even though dedicated incentives may be controversial, our analysis of both experiences shows that, notwithstanding significant learning costs, both schemes have facilitated substantial financial investment in strategically important infrastructure.
• A tabu search procedure for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with alternative subgraphs

  Servranckx, T.; Vanhoucke, Mario (Elsevier, 2019)

  This paper investigates the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with alternative subgraphs (RCPSP-AS). In this scheduling problem, there exist alternative ways to execute subsets of activities that belong to work packages. One alternative execution mode must be selected for each work package and, subsequently, the selected activities in the project structure should be scheduled. Therefore, the RCPSP-AS consists of two subproblems: a selection and a scheduling subproblem. A key feature of this research is the categorisation of different types of alternative subgraphs in a comprehensive classification matrix based on the dependencies that exist between the alternatives in the project structure. As the existing problem-specific datasets do not support this framework, we propose a new dataset of problem instances using a well-known project network generator. Furthermore, we develop a tabu search that uses information from the proposed classification matrix to guide the search process towards high-quality solutions. We verify the overall performance of the metaheuristic and different improvement strategies using the developed dataset. Moreover, we show the impact of different problem parameters on the solution quality and we analyse the impact of distinct resource characteristics of alternatives on the selection process.
• Judgmental forecast adjustments over different time horizons (Published Online)

  Van den Broeke, Maud; De Baets, Shari; Vereecke, Ann; Baecke, Philippe; Vanderheyden, Karlien (Elsevier, 2018)

  Accurate demand forecasting is the cornerstone of a firm’s operations. The statistical system forecasts are often judgmentally adjusted by forecasters who believe their knowledge can improve the final forecasts. While empirical research on judgmental forecast adjustments has been increasing, an important aspect is under-studied: the impact of these adjustments over different time horizons. Collecting data from 8 business cases, retrieving over 307,200 forecast adjustments, this work assesses how the characteristics (e.g., size and direction) and accuracy of consecutive adjustments change over different time horizons. We find that closer to the sales point, the number of adjustments increases and adjustments become larger and more positive; and that adjustments, both close and distant from the sales point, can deteriorate the final forecast accuracy. We discuss how these insights impact operational activities, such as production planning.
• Short selling in extreme events

  Geraci, Marco Valerio; Garbaravicius, Tomas; Veredas, David (Elsevier, 2018)

  We study the association between daily changes in short selling activity and financial stock prices during extreme events using TailCoR, a measure of tail correlation. For the largest European and US banks, as well as European insurers, we uncover a strong relation during exceptional (extreme) days and a weak relation during normal (average) days. Examining days with large increases in short positions and large downfalls in stock prices, we find evidence of both momentum and contrarian short selling taking place. For North American bank stocks, contrarian short selling appears more practiced than for European bank and insurance stocks. We find that the uncovered relationship decreases with firm size and increases during ban periods, which is in line with short selling becoming more informative when constrained.
• A 60 second clip to create change: palm oil role play (round 1)

  Roome (+), Nigel; Louche, Céline (2014)

  On March 17, 2010, Greenpeace launched a new campaign against the conversion of tropical rainforest to industrial palm oil plantations. The campaign directly attacked Nestle because its supply-chain included palm oil from alleged unsustainable sources. The campaign began with a 60 second video clip. Although Nestle was directly targeted by the campaign, other actors such as companies in the same sector, the suppliers and marketers of palm oil, and NGOs protecting the rainforest were also affected. The video went viral within a few days and Greenpeace followed up with other actions. The case is set up as a role play in two rounds. In round 1, students are invited to consider how the Greenpeace campaign might affect each of a set of five actors (but not Nestle). The five actors present their responses to the campaign and this provides a context to round 2. In round 2, students take on the role of managers at Nestle who have to decide what the company should do next. This role play is about better understanding the impact of organisations on society in a dynamic context shaped by the unfolding positions and actions of a number of organisations. It involves comprehending organisations and their actions in a more systemic perspective than usual; seizing on the complexity and context dependent nature of sustainability. At the same time the case introduces the phenomenon of targeted social activism; and the question of change not only by an organisation but also at the field level. The case study can also be used to critically assess the value of a range of management concepts such as stakeholder theory and creating shared value as well as exploring the business contribution to sustainable development in developed and developing countries.

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