HEC Montréal

About: HEC Montréal is a education organization based out in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Context (language use) & Vehicle routing problem. The organization has 1221 authors who have published 5708 publications receiving 196862 citations. The organization is also known as: Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Montreal & HEC Montreal.

Team Self-Managing Behaviors and Team Effectiveness: The Moderating Effect of Task Routineness

Abstract: This study investigates the role of team members’ self-managing behaviors in regard to three dimensions of team effectiveness. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating effect of task routine...

The Multi-Faceted Nature of Virtual Teams

Abstract: Advances in information technology, coupled with competitive pressures, have led to the increasing use of virtual teams in organizations. Their growing popularity has attracted the attention of researchers in both information systems and organizational behaviour. Despite the fact that research on this topic is blooming, our understanding of the virtual team phenomenon is still at an embryonic stage and there is much to learn about such teams before we can fully reap their potential benefits. In our view, a preliminary but necessary step is to investigate the multifaceted nature of virtual teams, so as to better define the true object of our investigations. Therefore, this paper first explores a basic definition of what a virtual team truly is and differentiates it from other related concepts such as virtua l group, virtual organization, virtual community, and telecommuting. In a second step, we identify those key characteristics that 1) differentiate virtual teams from conventional ones and 2) distinguish alternative configurations of virtual teams. Lastly, we illustrate how different configurations of virtual teams may raise different challenges and how management strategies must be chosen accordingly to ensure success. Implications for both practice and research are discussed in the conclusion section.

An exact algorithm for the petrol station replenishment problem

Abstract: In the petrol station replenishment problem (PSRP), the aim is to deliver petroleum products to petrol stations by means of an unlimited heterogeneous fleet of compartmented tank trucks. The problem consists of jointly determining quantities to deliver within a given interval, of allocating products to tank truck compartments and of designing delivery routes to stations. This article describes an exact algorithm which decomposes the PSRP into a truck loading problem and a routing problem. An algorithm which makes use of assignment, optimality tests and possibly standard ILP algorithm is proposed to solve the loading problem. The routing problem is handled using two different strategies, based either on a matching approach or on a column generation scheme. This algorithm was extensively tested on randomly generated data and on a real-life case arising in Eastern Quebec.

The inefficiency of worker time use

Abstract: Much work is carried out in short, interrupted segments. This phenomenon, which we label task juggling, has been overlooked by economists. We study the work schedules of some judges in Italy documenting that they do juggle tasks and that juggling causally lowers their productivity substantially. To measure the size of this effect, we show that although all these judges receive the same workload, those who juggle more trials at once instead of working sequentially on few of them at each unit of time, take longer to complete their portfolios of cases. Task juggling seems to have no adverse effect on the quality of the judges' decisions, as measured by the percent of decisions appealed. To identify these causal effects we estimate models with judge fixed effects and we exploit the lottery assigning cases to judges. We discuss whether task juggling can be viewed as inefficient, and provide a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the social cost of longer trials due to task juggling.