HEC Montréal

About: HEC Montréal is a education organization based out in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Vehicle routing problem & Corporate governance. 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.

Scheduling Twin Yard Cranes in a Container Block

Abstract: Annually, millions of containers enter and exit the stacking area of a terminal. If the stacking operations are not efficient, long ship, train, and truck delays will result. To improve the stacking operations, new container terminals, especially in Europe, decouple the landside and seaside by deploying twin automated stacking cranes. The cranes cannot pass each other and must be separated by a safety distance. We study how to schedule twin automated cranes to carry out a set of container storage and retrieval requests in a single block of a yard. Storage containers are initially located at the seaside and landside input/output I/O points of the block. Each must be stacked in a specific location of the block, selected from a set of open locations suitable for stacking the storage container. Retrieval containers are initially located in the block and must be delivered to the I/O points. Based on the importance and acceptable waiting times of different modes of transport, requests have different priorities. The problem is modeled as a multiple asymmetric generalized traveling salesman problem with precedence constraints. The objective is to minimize the makespan. We have developed an adaptive large neighborhood search heuristic to quickly compute near-optimal solutions. We have performed extensive computational experiments to assess the performance of the heuristic including validation at a real terminal. It obtains near-optimal solutions for small instances. For large instances, it is shown to yield better solutions than CPLEX truncated after four hours, and it outperforms other heuristics from practice by more than 24% in terms of makespan. The average gaps between our heuristic and optimal solutions for relaxed problems are less than 3%.

The International Zero-Leverage Phenomenon

Abstract: Zero-leverage is an international phenomenon which has increased over time. The increasing prevalence of zero-leverage firms is related to IPO waves and the accompanying changes in industry composition. In addition, we attribute the higher propensity to maintain a zero-leverage policy throughout all size and age groups to increasing asset volatility and decreasing corporate tax rates during our sample period. Countries with a common law system, high creditor protection, and a dividend imputation or dividend relief tax system exhibit the highest percentage of zero-leverage firms. Analyzing supply-side capital market frictions, we find that only a small number of profitable firms with high payout ratios deliberately maintain zero-leverage. In contrast, most zero-leverage firms are con-strained by their debt capacity; they are smaller, riskier, and less profitable, and they are the most active equity issuers. With respect to the demand-side of financing choices, we show that firms which pursue a zero-leverage policy only for a short period of time seek financial flexibility. After abandoning zero-leverage, these mostly un-constrained firms switch to higher leverage ratios, make higher investments, and reduce their cash holdings by a larger amount compared to constrained zero-leverage firms, which remain debt-free for longer periods of time.

Explicit and Implicit Antecedents of Users' Behavioral Beliefs in Information Systems: A Neuropsychological Investigation

Abstract: Behavioral beliefs—perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use—have been identified as the most influential antecedents of individuals' information systems use intentions and behaviors within the technology acceptance model. However, little research has been aimed at investigating the implicit (automatic or unconscious) determinants of such cognitive beliefs, and more importantly, the potential nonlinear relationships of such antecedents with explicit (perceptual) ones. As such, this paper theorizes that implicit neurophysiological states—memory load and distraction— and explicit—engagement and frustration—antecedents interact in the formation of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. To test the study's hypotheses, we conducted an experiment that measured neurophysiological states while individuals worked on instrumental and hedonic tasks using technology. The results show that, as theorized, implicit and explicit constructs interact together, and thus have a nonlinear effect on behavioral be...