On June 8, 2021, Scheller College of Business faculty Morvarid Rahmani, Karthik Ramachandran, and Beril Toktay, and their former PhD student collaborators Priyank Arora and Can Zhang, were recognized for their sustainability-related research at the 2021 Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM) Virtual Conference. The conference was hosted by the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.
The MSOM Society’s 2021 M&SOM Best Paper Award went to “Truthful Mechanisms for Medical Surplus Product Allocation,” by Can Zhang, Atalay Atasu, Turgay Ayer, and Beril Toktay. The paper addresses how medical surplus recovery organizations (MSROs) can overcome a challenging supply chain to deliver the right medical product to the right recipient healthcare facility. The paper, based on research at Decatur-based MSRO MedShare, was the subject of a Sustainable Business Insights research brief, “Operational Strategies to Match Surplus with Humanitarian Needs,” published by the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business. The paper was also the subject of a Scheller College article, “Research Helps Humanitarian Aid Organization,” and op-ed for the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability, “Bridging Surplus with Need: Improving Healthcare in the Developing World.”
“Doing Less to Do More? Optimal Service Portfolio of Non-profits that Serve Distressed Individuals,” written by Priyank Arora, Morvarid Rahmani, and Karthik Ramachandran, was awarded Honorable Mention in the 2021 MSOM Society Competition for Responsible Research. This paper, based on collaboration with Daya (a Houston-based nonprofit), investigates the design of nonprofit services to distressed individuals (those suffering from homelessness or domestic abuse) and suggests that such nonprofits with limited budgets can create greater social impact by focusing on a few key services instead of trying to do “everything for everyone.” The paper was the subject of a Sustainable Business Insights research brief, “How Can Nonprofit Organizations Maximize Social Impact for Distressed Individuals?,” and related op-ed, “How Nonprofits Can Maximize Impact With Limited Budgets,” published by NonProfit PRO.