Explore the vast range of titles available.

Findings: The proposed algorithm achieves an average efficiency of 99.32% compared to the enumeration algorithm, with minimal deviation (0.4%). The results validate the main proposition for efficient scheduling, including prioritizing jobs based on due dates, allocating job demands based on machine capacity, and sequencing batches based on size to minimize delays.Research limitations/implications: The model assumes static machine conditions and predefined job parameters, limiting its applicability in dynamic environments. Future research can extend this approach to incorporate real-time job arrivals or machine breakdown scenarios.Practical implications: This algorithm provides a practical tool for industries to optimize batch scheduling on unrelated parallel machines, improving production efficiency and reducing operational costs.Social implications: By improving production scheduling, this model indirectly supports sustainable manufacturing practices through optimal resource utilization.Originality/value: This study introduces a novel integration of backward scheduling with resource constraints and sequence-dependent setup times, addressing gaps in scheduling research for unrelated parallel machines.

In the last few decades, the resource-constrained project-scheduling problem has become a popular problem type in operations research. However, due to its strongly NP-hard status, the effectiveness of exact optimisation procedures is restricted to relatively small instances. In this paper, we present a new genetic algorithm (GA) for this problem that is able to provide near-optimal heuristic solutions. This GA procedure has been extended by a so-called decomposition-based genetic algorithm (DBGA) that iteratively solves subparts of the project. We present computational experiments on two data sets. The first benchmark set is used to illustrate the performance of both the GA and the DBGA. The second set is used to compare the results with current state-of-the-art heuristics and to show that the procedure is capable of producing consistently good results for challenging problem instances. We illustrate that the GA outperforms all state-of-the-art heuristics and that the DBGA further improves the performance of the GA.

This paper reports on new insights derived from computational results obtained with an updated version of the branch-and-bound procedure previously developed by Demeulemeester and Herroelen (Demeulemeester, E., W. Herroelen. 1992. A branch-and-bound procedure for the multiple resource-constrained project scheduling problem. Management Sci. 38 1803–1818.) for solving the resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP). The new code fully exploits the advantages of 32-bit programming provided by recent compilers running on platforms such as Windows NT ® and OS/2 ® : flat memory, increased addressable memory, and fast program execution. We study the impact of three important variables on the computation time for the RCPSP: addressable computer memory, the search strategy (depth-first, best-first, or hybrid), and the introduction of a stronger lower bound. We compare the results obtained by a truncated branch-and-bound procedure with the results generated by the minimum slack time heuristic and report on the dependency of its solution quality on the allotted CPU time.

This research examines how a general sense of resource availability influences consumers’ product use creativity. The authors propose and demonstrate that the salience of resource scarcity versus abundance enhances the novelty of product use solutions in independent consumption environments. An investigation of the underlying process finds that scarcity salience activates a constraint mindset that persists and manifests itself through reduced functional fixedness in subsequent product usage contexts (i.e., makes consumers think beyond the traditional functionality of a given product), consequently enhancing product use creativity. This work advances the extant creativity literature, currently limited to examining the effects of context-specific resource constraints, by establishing a context-independent linkage between resource availability and product use creativity. Furthermore, this research contributes to the scarcity literature, which has primarily focused on investigating the quantity and frequency of consumption, by examining the impact of scarcity on the quality of consumption solutions.

Hybrid organisations combine different elements from the for-profit and non-profit domains, and they usually operate in a resource-scarce environment. For these reasons, they continuously face various resources constraints, yet their hybrid nature could be translated into an opportunity. The purpose of our study was to investigate how a hybrid organisation can overcome resource constraints in developing countries by exploiting their own hybrid nature. In the unique research setting offered by Kenyan social enterprises, we identified five creative approaches implemented by social enterprises. Finally, we present a grounded model that clearly explains which hybrid harvesting strategies can be implemented to overcome resource constraints, exploiting their hybrid potential. Our work contributes to knowledge about resource constraints in the social entrepreneurship literature and extends social bricolage theory. Limitations and future research approaches are also presented.

In this study, we examine the relation between corporate environmental responsibility (CER) and risk in U.S. public firms. We develop and test the risk-reduction, resource-constraint, and cross-industry variation hypotheses. Using an extensive U.S. sample during the 1991-2012 period, we find that for U.S. industries as a whole, CER engagement inversely affects firm risk after controlling for various firm characteristics. The result remains robust when we use firm fixed effect or an alternative measure of CER using principal component analysis or downside risk measures. To address the concern of endogeneity bias, we use a system equations approach and dynamic system generalized methods of moment regressions, and continue to find that environmentally responsible firms experience lower risk. These findings support the risk-reduction hypothesis, but not the resource-constraint hypothesis, along with the notion that the top management in U.S. firms is generally risk averse and that their CER engagement facilitates their risk management efforts. Our cross-industry analysis further reveals that the inverse CER-risk association mainly comes from the manufacturing sector, whereas in the service sector, CER tends to increase firm risk.

As one of the manufacturing industries with high energy consumption and high pollution, sand casting is facing major challenges in green manufacturing. In order to balance production and green sustainable development, this paper puts forward man–machine dual resource constraint mechanism. In addition, a multi-objective flexible job shop scheduling problem model constrained by job transportation time and learning effect is constructed, and the goal is to minimize processing time energy consumption and noise. Subsequently, a hybrid discrete multi-objective imperial competition algorithm (HDMICA) is developed to solve the model. The global search mechanism based on the HDMICA improves two aspects: a new initialization method to improve the quality of the initial population, and the empire selection method based on Pareto non-dominated solution to balance the empire forces. Then, the improved simulated annealing algorithm is embedded in imperial competition algorithm (ICA), which overcomes the premature convergence problem of ICA. Therefore, four neighborhood structures are designed to help the algorithm jump out of the local optimal solution. Finally, an example is used to verify the feasibility of the proposed algorithm. By comparing with the original ICA and other four algorithms, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in the quality of the first frontier solution is verified.

The staging of small-scale sport events, such as regional Senior Games, can generate considerable community benefits. These events are typically hosted by public or nonprofit organizations at the local level in a resource-constrained environment. Sport organizations’ abilities to procure and mobilize critical resources can influence event delivery and the achievement of desired outcomes. However, it remains to be seen how these events’ organizers respond to such resource constraints during delivery. To address this gap, this study employs the conceptual framework of “bricolage” to understand the strategies event organizers utilize to tackle resource constraints in the delivery of regional Senior Games. We conducted two rounds of semi-structured interviews with key event organizers of regional Senior Games. Our findings conceptualized three bricolage strategies (i.e., human resource bricolage, financial bricolage, and network bricolage) and offered empirical evidence of their deployment at small-scale sport events in penurious settings.

The ant colony algorithm, a heuristic algorithm that mimics ants’ foraging, can optimize problem-solving. Applying this algorithm to the design of innovation and entrepreneurship projects in colleges and universities can enhance the effectiveness and feasibility of these projects. Based on an analysis of the college innovation and entrepreneurship project design process, the article explores the entrepreneurial path through the use of big data analysis. Then, it discusses the ant colony algorithm’s basic concept and mathematical model and proposes a two-population ant colony algorithm for multi-objective resource-constrained project scheduling problems. When compared to the traditional algorithm, the improved ant colony algorithm runs 25–33 ms faster, and Company A’s operating costs drop by 1,176,000 yuan from 2020 to 2023. This shows that the improved ant colony algorithm suggested in this paper can make university innovation and entrepreneurship programs more efficient at allocating resources.

Entrepreneurial growth—firm growth via the introduction of new market offerings or expansion into new markets—is an important topic for entrepreneurship scholars and practitioners alike. Any firm that wants to exploit opportunities for entrepreneurial growth needs resources and capabilities that it can use to develop new market offerings or to enter new markets. However, many firms face resource and capability constraints, and research has shown that strategic partnerships can provide external pathways for firms to exploit growth opportunities despite their resource and capability constraints. All the extant external growth pathways have in common that they require firms to have some resources and capabilities, which are valuable for partners and can be jointly appropriated with them. An alternative pathway for firms to leverage external resources and capabilities—especially knowledge-based ones—that has received little attention in the literature on growth is short-term contracting of professional service firms such as accounting firms, marketing agencies, or R&D consultancies. Hence, we investigate the role of service intermediaries—professional service firms that facilitate the exchange of services among other firms—as external managers who support their clients to access and leverage a broad range of required resources and capabilities from third parties. We conducted a nested multi-case study of two service intermediaries that enabled two small, wineries from North Macedonia to successfully seize entrepreneurial growth opportunities in markets abroad despite their resource and capability deficits. We identify seven support mechanisms—need articulating, social embedding, linking, governing, clarifying, renegotiating, and mediating—through which the service intermediaries orchestrated complementary external resources and capabilities on behalf of the wineries, thereby enabling the two firms to successfully develop two new product lines for and enter two new geographic markets each. We also identify process differences depending on the stage of the opportunity evaluation process, target market characteristics, and external stakeholder involvement for which we postulate three propositions about the influence of mechanisms on the growth opportunity development. Our study offers novel insights and makes a contribution to research on entrepreneurial growth and resource orchestration.Plain English SummaryMany firms face resource and capability constraints that inhibit their entrepreneurial growth. One approach that firms can use to overcome these constraints is by leveraging external resources and capabilities. However, constrained firms often are unable to establish relationships with and leverage resources and capabilities from external providers. Our study demonstrates how service intermediaries can orchestrate the complementary external resources and capabilities of constrained firms to enable the exploitation of growth opportunities in new markets. The findings of our study can provide policymakers, especially ones focused on regional competitiveness and economic growth, with a framework to foster the creation of intermediaries, which in turn can enable resource- and capability-constrained firms to exploit growth opportunities. In addition, constrained firms may use our findings of this study as a guiding framework when leveraging complementary external resources—independent of whether they orchestrate these resources themselves or engage external resource orchestration managers.