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.

Location strategy in cluster networks

Abstract: This article investigates the location strategies of Canadian and Chinese multisite firms in international and domestic investment decisions at the metropolitan level. By integrating research from international business studies and economic geography, we combine knowledge-based understandings of multinational corporations and industrial clusters to develop propositions regarding the location strategies of multisite firms in cluster networks. It is argued that firms from clusters are more likely to adopt knowledge strategies than firms from other areas and that they tend to choose cluster locations that are specialized in the same or similar industries to achieve their knowledge goals – both in domestic and international investment decisions. We establish and analyze a database of 3500 investment cases within and between Canada and China to test our propositions. The results show that firms in knowledge-intensive industrial environments with substantial business experience are especially inclined to direct their investments to clusters. Consistent with our emphasis of the subnational as opposed to the national scale, we find that cluster-of-origin effects are more important than country-of-origin effects in explaining firms’ investment choices in clusters. These findings support the idea that multisite firms, particularly MNEs, leverage local knowledge pools by strategically locating affiliates across clusters.

Measuring quality of service in dial-a-ride operations: the case of a Canadian city

Abstract: In many countries, dial-a-ride services are provided by public authorities to elderly and handicapped people who cannot use regular transit. Cost minimization is key to running these services, but one can observe a growing interest in quality measurement and improvement. A first step in improving quality is to define a quality measurement scale specific to dial-a-ride services. A second step is to incorporate quality measurements in mathematical models that serve as a basis for optimization algorithms. To this end, an extensive survey of dial-a-ride users was conducted in Longueuil, the largest suburb of Montreal, Canada. This paper describes the steps of the survey and presents its main conclusions: (1) 56 attributes were identified based on interviews, (2) the questionnaire developed has proved to be reliable and valid, (3) an exploratory factor analysis allowed us to determine 13 dimensions of quality in dial-a-ride services, (4) the most important criteria for users were identified, and (5) population segmenting variables by which subgroups of users can be categorized were also determined. Managerial implications of our results are also discussed.

Leakage of Public Resources in the Health Sector: An Empirical Investigation of Chad

Abstract: In the public sector in developing countries, leakage of public resources could prove detrimental to users and affect the well-being of the population. This paper empirically examines the importance of leakage of government resources in the health sector in Chad, and its effects on the prices of drugs. The analysis uses data collected in Chad as part of a Health Facilities Survey organized by the World Bank in 2004. The survey covered 281 primary health care centers and contained information on the provision of medical material, financial resources, and medicines allocated by the Ministry of Health to the regional administration and primary health centers. Although the regional administration is officially allocated 60 percent of the ministry's non-wage recurrent expenditures, the share of the resources that actually reach the regions is estimated to be only 18 percent. The health centers, which are the frontline providers and the entry point for the population, receive less than 1 percent of the ministry's non-wage recurrent expenditures. Accounting for the endogeneity of the level of competition among health centers, the leakage of government resources has a significant and negative impact on the price mark-up that health centers charge patients for drugs.

End-Of-Life Medical Spending In Last Twelve Months Of Life Is Lower Than Previously Reported

Abstract: Although end-of-life medical spending is often viewed as a major component of aggregate medical expenditure, accurate measures of this type of medical spending are scarce We used detailed health care data for the period 2009–11 from Denmark, England, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Taiwan, the United States, and the Canadian province of Quebec to measure the composition and magnitude of medical spending in the three years before death In all nine countries, medical spending at the end of life was high relative to spending at other ages Spending during the last twelve months of life made up a modest share of aggregate spending, ranging from 85 percent in the United States to 112 percent in Taiwan, but spending in the last three calendar years of life reached 245 percent in Taiwan This suggests that high aggregate medical spending is due not to last-ditch efforts to save lives but to spending on people with chronic conditions, which are associated with shorter life expectancies