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.

Towards Deep Conversational Recommendations

Abstract: There has been growing interest in using neural networks and deep learning techniques to create dialogue systems. Conversational recommendation is an interesting setting for the scientific exploration of dialogue with natural language as the associated discourse involves goal-driven dialogue that often transforms naturally into more free-form chat. This paper provides two contributions. First, until now there has been no publicly available large-scale dataset consisting of real-world dialogues centered around recommendations. To address this issue and to facilitate our exploration here, we have collected ReDial, a dataset consisting of over 10,000 conversations centered around the theme of providing movie recommendations. We make this data available to the community for further research. Second, we use this dataset to explore multiple facets of conversational recommendations. In particular we explore new neural architectures, mechanisms, and methods suitable for composing conversational recommendation systems. Our dataset allows us to systematically probe model sub-components addressing different parts of the overall problem domain ranging from: sentiment analysis and cold-start recommendation generation to detailed aspects of how natural language is used in this setting in the real world. We combine such sub-components into a full-blown dialogue system and examine its behavior.

Hybrid stockless: a case study

Abstract: Due to the diversity of its players, the American healthcare sector has experimented with different types of integrated supply chain management systems for medical supplies. In the 1980s, US distributors were offering customers the so‐called stockless replenishment method, whereby the distributor picks and packs products according to the particular needs of each patient care unit and, in most cases, delivers them directly. By the late 1990s, stockless agreements had run out of steam, as distributors sought to optimize the balance between their efforts expended in hospital replenishment and the hospitals’ inventory savings. Among the various reflections and initiatives aimed at finding such a new balance, we focused on the experience of a Quebec (Canada) hospital adopting a hybrid version of the stockless system, under which the distributor supplied high‐volume products for the patient care unit in case quantities, leaving the institution’s central stores to break down bulk purchases of low‐volume products into point‐of‐use format (eaches). The study reveals marginal benefits from the hybrid method for both the institution and the distributor. However, it also reveals the importance of the manufacturer’s role with respect to packing formats, and demonstrates that the rearrangement of storage areas can generate substantial savings, opening the way to means for improving the healthcare sector supply chain.

Necessity entrepreneurship and competitive strategy

Abstract: Many start-ups chose to compete with incumbent firms using one of two generic strategies: cost leadership or differentiation. Our study demonstrates how this choice depends on whether the start-up was founded out of necessity. Our results, based on a representative data set of 4,568 German start-ups, show that necessity entrepreneurs are more likely than other entrepreneurs to pursue a cost leadership strategy and less likely to pursue a differentiation strategy. Decomposition analyses further show that up to half of the difference in choice of strategy can be attributed to distinct endowments of human capital, socioeconomic attributes, and start-up project characteristics that correlate with necessity entrepreneurship.

A Triple Take on Information System Implementation

Abstract: While researchers have used a variety of models to explain information system (IS) implementation outcomes, few have analyzed the same project or set of projects with different models looking for complementary explanations. Recognizing the multilevel nature of IS implementation, our study rises to this challenge by conducting an alternate template analysis of three cases of IS implementation in hospitals. First, we explain individual use, group resistance, and organizational adoption with models situated at the same level of analysis as each outcome. At the individual level, we use a model of cognitive absorption to explain individual system usage. At the group level, the political variant of interaction theory is used to explain group resistance to IS implementation. At the organizational level, we use organizational configurations to explain IS adoption in terms of emergence and routinization. We identify each model's limits and prediction failures, and we show that using alternate models helps to remedy a model's prediction failures and overcome its limits. Finally, we propose an alternate-template theory of IS implementation outcomes that takes into account all three levels of analysis, their respective outcomes, and the time dimension. This multilevel, longitudinal theory provides a better understanding of IS implementation and further elucidates what may initially have seemed to be contradictory results.

Dynamic Games in the Economics and Management of Pollution

Abstract: The paper provides a survey of the literature which utilizes dynamic state-space games to formulate and analyze intertemporal, many decision-maker problems in the economics and management of pollution.