Vlerick Repository
The Vlerick Repository is a searchable open-access publication database, containing the complete archive of research output written by Vlerick Business School faculty and researchers.
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Publication Courting the sharks: The effects of CEO narcissistic admiration and rivalry on new venture funding(INFORMS, 2025)We draw from the social psychology literature to introduce an alternative conceptualization of executive narcissism—narcissistic admiration and rivalry. In the context of CEOs pitching to investors, we theorize how narcissistic CEOs may use distinct behavioral strategies to pursue status, thereby shaping investor sentiment and ultimately affecting investors’ funding decisions. Using Shark Tank data, we find evidence that narcissistic admiration and rivalry are associated with opposing patterns in new venture funding, as shaped by investor sentiment. Specifically, CEO narcissistic admiration is positively associated with new venture funding by increasing investor sentiment, whereas CEO narcissistic rivalry is negatively associated with new venture funding by decreasing investor sentiment. These results highlight the need to separate narcissistic admiration and rivalry in executive narcissism research and illustrate the underlying mechanisms through which executive narcissism shapes organizational outcomes. Overall, this study provides new insights into two pathways of executive narcissism and offers evidence consistent with the idea that executive narcissism matters in entrepreneurial contexts.Publication Food@Home (C): Sales forecasting(2024)This is part of a case series. Food@Home fictional is a meal box delivery company that, under the leadership of Ella Joung, has successfully embraced digital transformation by incorporating innovative technologies in route optimization and warehousing. The finance director, John Crawford, recognized that their current budgeting process was outdated and labor-intensive. Therefore, he sought Ella's expertise to introduce a more data-driven approach. Ella proposed forecasting future sales, leveraging the detailed sales data collected since 2015. Acknowledging the limitations of relying solely on historical sales data, Ella expanded the dataset to include information on the price level, advertising campaigns run over the years, and external data such as COVID-19 infection rates, competitors, and economic inflation. The resulting comprehensive dataset provided Ella with the foundation to develop a sophisticated forecasting application, aligning Food@Home with modern budgeting practices and ensuring a more accurate prediction of future sales amidst changing market conditions.Publication Bringing microaggressions from the shadows to the spotlight: Unveiling silencing mechanisms and distinct patterns in coping(Wiley, 2025)While many organizations work intensively to implement gender equity policies, women's experiences remain heavily marked by covert forms of bias, with microaggressions being the most ubiquitous. Microaggressions (which subtly but persistently manifest prejudice at the behavioral level), persist in workplaces despite growing awareness of their negative impacts. This qualitative study examines why they are often met with silence, exploring the interplay between silencing mechanisms rooted in inequality regimes and individual coping strategies. One hundred twenty-five participants (three-quarters of whom were women) shared nearly 700 incidents of microaggressions on an online platform in a Western European setting. Findings highlight five distinct stages individuals cope with microaggressions: ignorance, awareness, hypervigilance, resignation, and psychological control. Each of these coping mechanisms was influenced by structural silencing mechanisms, the individual's understanding of what was happening to them, and the frequency with which they encountered microaggressions. The study underscores how structural inequalities perpetuate microaggressions and their subsequent silencing, emphasizing that the harm of microaggressions goes beyond the initial incident to include the inability to address them effectively. This demonstrates that addressing microaggressions requires a twofold approach: dismantling silencing mechanisms rooted in inequality regimes and empowering individuals with tailored strategies to confront these subtle yet damaging forms of discrimination. This research provides key insights into fostering more inclusive and equitable workplaces.Publication A quest for projects with scarce resources - Seeking schedule intelligence through project data discovery(Springer, 2024)Based on the shared journey of two researchers, this book explores enhancing algorithms for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem. It examines the search for and significance of project data from multiple, distinct perspectives. In the first part, the quest for project data is presented as a continuous exploration of the complexity of the resource-constrained project scheduling problem. This quest is pursued by solving this challenging problem with the aid of state-of-the-art algorithms from the literature, each time gaining a deeper understanding of its challenging nature. To provide insights into the problem’s complexity, project data is created, manipulated, and analyzed in depth to make current projects easier or harder to schedule. This challenging quest for project data has resulted in new project databases for academic research, new ways of testing future algorithms, and insights into how to improve future algorithms to solve this project scheduling problem with limited resources. In turn, the second part discusses the relevance of project data, demonstrating to the reader the importance of the academic research presented in the first part for the professional world. It shows how project data can be used to calibrate real project data, leading to improved decision-making, e.g. for project scheduling, forecasting, and risk analysis. The book extends a warm invitation to academics and practitioners alike, as fellow seekers of knowledge, to enhance their project management skills.Publication A genetic algorithm for seafood processing with flexible flow shops and sequence-dependent setups(Springer, 2025)This paper studies a variant of the flexible Flow Shop Scheduling Problem as encountered at a large-scale Belgian seafood processing plant. The operations are conducted in two sequential stages as the seafood products are first filleted or prepared on specialised machines and then packaged through parallel machines. Since the packaging is product-specific, sequence-dependent setup times should be considered in the second stage. Improved scheduling of the operations would require fewer setups and thus efficiently planning the operations on the machines at the packaging station will be an important objective of this research. Furthermore, since the end product quality is crucial in the food industry and this is mainly determined by the speed of processing, the makespan will be minimised in this study. However, we further contribute to the existing literature by investigating several objectives that were relevant to the company’s management. The scheduling problem is solved using a single- and multi-pass algorithms that can easily be implemented in the seafood processing plant. Furthermore, a genetic algorithm with a focus on various diversity measures and problem-specific crossover and mutation operators is developed. Although the genetic algorithm is more difficult to implement, it allowed us to solve real world cases with over 100 orders daily within a reasonable computational time, resulting in an improved solution quality.