What We are Reading – Page 3 – The OM Blog by Heizer, Render, & Munson

Good OM Reading: The State of Sustainable Supply Chains

Building and maintaining resilient supply chains is a key success factor for business in a globalized and fast-changing world. Over the past few years, sustainability has been added to the procurement and sourcing criteria for many companies. Workforce health and safety incidents, labor disputes, world conflicts, raw materials shortages, environmental disasters and new legislation in areas like modern slavery have contributed to the growing awareness of supply chain risks.

Many companies still do not have an understanding of the performance, risks and sustainability impacts of their supply chain. This new 48 page Ernst & Young study explores the current state of sustainable supply chains by interviewing more than 100 global supply chain executives. The study shows that by improving performance throughout their supply chains, companies can enhance processes, save costs, increase labor productivity, uncover product innovation, achieve market differentiation, and have a significant impact on society.

Companies do vary significantly in their approaches to supply chain sustainability. The interviews revealed that the approach to creating sustainable supply chains can be categorized in 5 major groups: basic, improving, established, mature, and leading. Most companies are in the improving or established categories. An improving program is characterized by a minimum level of expectations with a focus on risk and compliance, and basic auditing of high risk suppliers.

As a program becomes more established, companies set clear expectations for suppliers and develop processes to select and manage suppliers against those expectations. Companies with a mature program focus on integrating these processes, requiring suppliers to work with their 2^nd and 3^rd tier suppliers to improve performance. Mature companies also address their own sourcing processes, rather than simply relying on suppliers to achieve sourcing goals.

The report draws 6 conclusions: (1) supply chain sustainability can no longer be ignored; (2) companies are predominantly risk-driven; (3) companies tailor their approaches to create sustainable supply chains; (4) leading companies are establishing a shared commitment with suppliers; (5) technology enables visibility and influence beyond tier 1; and (6) collaboration is critical for companies to achieve greater impacts.

Good OM Reading: The Hard Work Behind Analytics Success

The hype around business analytics, our topics in Modules A-F, has reached a fever pitch. From baseball to biomedical advances, stories abound about data scientists applying their wizard like talents to find untapped markets, make millions, or save lives. Data has been described as the new oil, the new soil, the next big thing, and the force behind a new management revolution. Despite the hype, the reality is that many companies still struggle to figure out how to use analytics to take advantage of their data. The experience of managers grappling, sometimes unsuccessfully, with ever-increasing amounts of data and sophisticated analytics is often more the rule than the exception, concludes a new MIT Sloan Management Review study (March, 2016).

Five key findings came from the research:

Competitive advantage with analytics is waning. The percentage of companies that report obtaining a competitive advantage with analytics has declined significantly as increased market adoption of analytics levels the playing field and makes it more difficult for companies to keep their edge.
Optimism about the potential of analytics remains strong, despite the decline in competitive advantage. Most managers are still quite positive about its potential. They’ve seen increased interest in analytics over the past few years, and they expect its use to continue to grow.
Achieving competitive advantage with analytics requires a sustained commitment to changing the role of data in decision making. This commitment touches many organizational aspects, from revamping information management to adapting cultural norms.
Companies that are successful with analytics are much more likely to have a strategic plan for analytics, and this plan is usually aligned with the organization’s overall corporate strategy.
Most companies are not prepared for the investment and cultural change that are required to achieve sustained success with analytics, including expanding the skill set of managers who use data and broadening the types of decisions influenced by data.

Good OM Reading: GE’s Big Bet on the Industrial Internet

GE has bet big on the Industrial Internet — the convergence of industrial machines, data, and the Internet (also referred to as the Internet of Things) — committing $1 billion to put sensors on gas turbines, jet engines, and other machines; connect them to the cloud; and analyze the resulting flow of data to identify ways to improve machine productivity and reliability.

While many software companies like SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft have been focused on providing technology for the back office, GE is leading the development of a new breed of operational technology (OT) that literally sits on top of industrial machinery. Long known as the technology that controls and monitors machines, OT now goes beyond these functions by connecting machines via the cloud and using data analytics to help predict breakdowns and assess the machines’ overall health. GE executives, writes the MIT Sloan Management Review (Feb. 18, 2016), say they are redefining industrial automation by extracting lessons from the IT revolution and customizing them for rugged heavy-industrial environments. This lengthy MIT case study looks at how the old-line manufacturer is remaking itself into a modern digital business.

GE recently projected its revenue from software products would reach $15 billion by 2020 — 3 times its 2015 bookings. While software sales today are derived largely from traditional measurement and control offerings, GE expects that by 2020, most software revenue will come from its Predix1 software, a cloud-based platform for creating Industrial Internet applications.

GE has long had the ability to collect machine data: Sensors have been riding on GE machines for years. But these pre-Internet of Things (IoT) sensors were used to conduct real-time operational performance monitoring, such as displaying a pressure reading on a machine, not to collect data. Indeed, a technician would often take a reading from a machine to check its performance and then discard the data.

Good OM Reading: The Coming Robot Apocalypse?

Merrill Lynch just sent me a 300 page report the firm recently released called Robot Revolution – Global Robot & AI Primer. It makes for fascinating reading. “We are facing a paradigm shift which will change the way we live and work,” the report states. “The pace of disruptive technological innovation has gone from linear to parabolic in recent years. Penetration of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) has hit every industry sector, and has become an integral part of our daily lives.” We are in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution, following steam, mass production and electronics, concludes the study.

Merrill Lynch estimated robots could boost work productivity by 1/3 in countries and reduce staff costs by about the same amount. Manufacturing jobs, as well as jobs that require little to no creativity, are at risk of being replaced by robots. Jobs that pay less than $35,000 a year are five times more likely to be replaced by robots than jobs that pay $100,000 a year or more. The firm estimates this will be a $153 billion market by 2020, with robots performing 45% of manufacturing tasks by 2025, compared with 10% today.

“Robots and AI are becoming an integral part of our daily lives,” says the report, “as providers of labor, mobility, safety, convenience, and entertainment. We anticipate growing risks around robots, the smart grid, autonomous cars, and drones and commercial flights. Managers are raising legitimate, longer-term questions as to when robots/AI reach a point that machines are smarter than humans, and around the development of fully autonomous weapons. The report cites a Pew survey that found 48% of industry leaders worry about the effects of robots on society. If robots take all these jobs, for example, it risks societal upheaval and collapse. Then there are the military drones. The firm estimates that $123 billion will be invested in drones over the next decade. Who is going to control the drones, asks Merrill Lynch, and what are they going to do with them?

Good OM Reading: Supply Chain Resilience

Semiconductor companies shaken by earthquakes; transportation companies battered by weather; retailers outwitted by rivals — nearly every company has endured some type of catastrophe, and then learned from its experience, disruption after disruption. For example, GM became more resilient with every crisis it faced, from the bankruptcy of its strategic supplier, Delphi, in 2005 to the Japan earthquake in 2012. “Technology is an increasingly important tool in the arsenal of resilience” writes MIT Sloan Management Review (Oct., 2015) .

From sensors to cloud computing to social media, various technologies can help prepare for, detect and manage disruption. Sensors can warn of impending events, from industrial accidents to earthquakes. When interconnected into Internet of Things networks, these smart devices can alert employees to a potential or existing disruption. During and after disasters, every human being on the scene can now be a sensor. Social media channels can provide an informal, real-time damage assessment. But even as technology makes it easier to detect and manage risk, it is also a major source of risk. A cyber-security breach can disrupt as much as an earthquake can– as the many retailers that fell victim to digital theft discovered in 2014. A large part of the problem is not rooted in sophisticated penetration of firewalls, but with insiders whose mobile devices are infected inside the firewall.

Collecting information from every source — weather reports, sensors, industrial intelligence — is only half the job. What organizations do with the information is key. The technology will sound the alarm, but the decision-making process that ensues is the real issue. Consider the actions taken by dispatchers when alerted to an earthquake in Mexico City a few years ago. Those empowered employees were able to shut down the subway system 40 seconds before the earthquake hit, avoiding a possible disaster. Employee empowerment illustrates a key difference between resilient and non-resilient companies: Resilient companies delegate to the lowest level. They organize in advance for disruption and consolidate crucial information in an emergency operations center. With the increasing use of cloud technologies, these centers can be virtual so that employees can work on the disruption, even from home.

Good OM Reading: Sustainable Supply Chains

Climate change is once again rising up the global agenda. Physical climate, and regulatory and consumer preference changes expose supply chains to growing levels of climate risk. This new 21 page report, called Supply Chain Sustainability Revealed, by Accenture, discusses threats and opportunities for companies at the top of supply chains. Findings include: (1) High levels of climate risk in key supply chains, and inadequate supplier response; (2) Supply chains in the US, China, and India are considered ‘vulnerable’; (3) Suppliers in India and Canada are not doing enough to manage climate change risks; (4) Suppliers in Brazil have done the least to manage climate exposures and recent water shortages; and (5) Suppliers who demonstrate a high propensity to collaborate with supply chain partners to reduce climate risk and, and who invest in emission reduction initiatives, deliver the greatest ROI.

The report also shows an increasing level of climate risk management within supply chains, which in turn is generating better climate risk outcomes. Water risk remains a concern – despite its potential for shocks – with 45% of exposed companies surveyed not carrying out a water-risk assessment.

The report states that the onus for changing lies with the customers, the large multinational companies like Wal-Mart whose procurement spending drives the global economy. Accenture writes: “Leading companies already understand their ability to drive change among their suppliers. It is incumbent upon more of their peers to require that their suppliers measure and disclose their carbon footprint, and work with their suppliers to find and, if necessary, incentivize emission reduction initiatives.”

Suppliers, meanwhile, should recognize that it is in their own interest to embrace more sustainable modes of operation. Not only do these offer a means to reduce costs by driving efficiency in resource use, but sustainability is likely to become a key differentiator in the marketplace. The report also urges policymakers must acknowledge their responsibility, and provide regulatory support to encourage companies.

Good OM Reading: The Myth of the Ethical Supply Chain

Inside the Tazreen garment factory after the fire

The anti-sweatshop mania burst into the mainstream in the mid-90’s. Naked people chanted outside the opening of an Old Navy, Jennifer Love Hewitt led an anti-sweatshop protest, Kathie Lee Gifford cried in front of Congress. Nearly every major apparel brand was the target of a boycott campaign. In response, the companies adopted codes of conduct, banning workers under 16 and forced overtime—then expanding to health, safety, and environmental protection. Since 1998, Nike has followed U.S. clean air standards in all of its factories worldwide, while Levi’s gives financial literacy classes to some of its seamstresses. An entire ecosystem of independent inspectors sprung up.

However, it’s not the largest companies that are the issue. In the last 25 years, as the big brands were getting better at monitoring their supply chains, the entire global apparatus of manufacturing shifted. In the fast-fashion era, Western brands couldn’t afford the luxury of working with the same suppliers and ensuring that they meet the company’s standards. Most of them outsourced this coordination to megasuppliers: huge conglomerates that can take a design sketch, split the production between 1,000’s of factories, box up the goods and ship them to stores.

Recall that in 2012, as the fire alarm went off in a Tazreen garment factory in Bangladesh, over 1,200 workers were scrambling to complete orders for Western brands: Dickies, Wal-Mart, Disney. After 100 workers died, NGOs focused on how Wal-Mart was responsible for 60% of the clothing being produced there. But Wal-Mart never actually placed an order with Tazreen. A year before the fire, Wal-Mart inspected the factory and discovered that it was unsafe. By the time of the fire, it had banned its suppliers from using it. So how did its products end up at Tazreen anyway? Wal-Mart had hired a megasupplier called Success Apparel to fill an order. Success hired another company, Simco, to carry out the work. Simco—without telling Success, much less Wal-Mart—sub-contracted the order to Tazreen’s parent company, the Tuba Group, which then assigned it to Tazreen. Two other 4th and 5th tier contractors also placed Wal-Mart orders at Tazreen, again without telling the company.

This lengthy, but highly readable, article in The Huffington Post, is a perfect supplement to your discussion of SCM in Chapter 11.

Good OM Reading: The History and Future of Operations

Prof. Marco Iansiti’s new article in Harvard Business Review (July, 2015), declares: “It’s time to rethink what we mean when talk about operations. Operations is and has always been what gives an organization the power to act: to create value for its customers; to capture value for its shareholders; and to share value with its ecosystem. In the era of ubiquitous digital technologies, operations empowers an increasing variety of organizations.”

Growing out of the industrial revolution of the late 1800s, OM field took off as the modern economy emerged from the new phenomenon of volume manufacturing. Popular notions of “interchangeable parts” were first applied to the design of muskets and enabled a new breed of industrialists to invent a modular system of production, in which individual components could be manufactured independently and at scale. This gradually led to the concepts of logistics, supply chains, and assembly lines, and formed the foundations of the “American System of Manufacturing,” which grew during the first half of the 20^th century and peaked during the 1950s. (In fact, at one time Harvard Business School offered practical classroom demonstrations on the use of lathes and milling machines). The 1960s saw the development of a broad variety of analytical methods to analyze and optimize the flow of goods and information not only in manufacturing systems, but in a wide variety of service contexts.

What is different now? Digital technology and its exploding range of applications in web services, mobile, and now the internet of things means that the development and delivery of software services is transforming the fabric of operating environments. If the essence of OM is providing economic agents with “the power to act,” digital technology is transforming the nature by which that power is defined and delivered, with new operating models that are increasingly open, distributed, and shared across thousands of organizations and contributors. These new models have enabled close to 9 million independent developers to contribute apps to mobile platforms. And they’ve enabled WhatsApp to grow to over 450,000 users with fewer than 30 employees. As such, the design of development tools, operating system APIs, and the user onboarding process for apps have become as crucial to OM excellence as production planning or inventory theory.

Good OM Reading: An MIT Case Study of Hospital Efficiency

American health care is undergoing a data-driven transformation. This MIT Sloan Management Review (June 25, 2015) case study examines the data and operations analysis culture at Intermountain Healthcare, a Utah-based company that runs 22 hospitals and 185 clinics. Data-driven decision making has improved patient outcomes in Intermountain’s cardiovascular medicine, endocrinology, surgery, obstetrics and care processes — while saving millions of dollars in its supply chain. Here are just two examples from this lengthy, but very readable study, one worth sharing with your class.

SURGERY: When data showed Intermountain’s chief of surgery that surgical infection rates at the hospital were in line with national norms, he presented the findings to the surgeons there. He said, “You think you’re great, but compared to other hospitals in the country, you’re not above average.” So a committee of clinicians spent a year developing a list of 30 possible causes, then whittled it down to 5 and made recommendations of changes. Doctors hated some, like having to give up bringing personal items into the operating room, including fleece jackets they would wear to keep warm. But in fact, after a 6 month trial, infection rates fell to half the national standard.

SUPPLY CHAIN: Supply costs will exceed hospitals’ top expense–labor–by 2020. The challenge is that a lack of price transparency and no system for sharing cost information with unaware doctors. So Intermountain started a supply chain organization–facing 12,000 vendors, $1.3 billion in expenses, and a culture that ceded much purchasing authority to doctors. One challenge was finding a way to reduce expenses for physician preference items (PPIs)–the devices that doctors request because they prefer them to comparable products. PPIs consume as much as 40% of a hospital’s supply budget. Intermountain launched a system designed to reduce costs by tracking its 50 highest-volume procedures and presenting information to surgeons on their supply options. One thing it found was that some coronary surgeons used sutures that cost $750, while others used sutures that cost $250. The analytics revealed no appreciable difference in patient outcomes. Doctors had no idea that the things they were using cost so much.

Good OM Reading: Robots Probably Won’t Steal Jobs

“There is no shortage of angst about the relentless advance of digital technology and what it means for the work force, if not humanity,” writes The New York Times (June 8, 2015). Dire warnings have come from no less than Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates. So, to paraphrase many recent headlines, “will robots eat our jobs?”

Not necessarily, according to two new entries to the debate. One is a lengthy cover article in The Harvard Business Review (June, 2015), “Beyond Automation: Strategies for Remaining Gainfully Employed in an Era of Very Smart Machines.” The other is a new McKinsey study, “A Labor Market That Works: Connecting Talent With Opportunity in the Digital Age.”

The McKinsey study analyzes and forecasts the potential impact of so-called digital talent platforms. The report looks at three types of such platforms: job-finding and employee-seeking websites (such as Monster.com and LinkedIn); marketplaces for services (Uber and Upwork, for example); and data-driven talent discovery tools (like Evolv and Knack). By 2025, McKinsey estimates, these digital talent platforms could add $2.7 trillion a year to global gross domestic product–and companies that make efficient use of the digital platforms can increase their productivity by up to 9%.

The HBR article concedes the advance of automation, but adds: “Instead of seeing work as a zero-sum game with machines taking an ever greater share, we might see growing possibilities for employment. In an era of innovation, the emphasis has to be on the upside of people. They will always be the source of next-generation ideas and the element of operations that is hardest for competitors to replicate.” Competitive advantage will be lost by those organizations infatuated with technology alone. Automation, the article states, is often useful but rarely a game winner for most companies. “That realization will dawn as it becomes increasingly clear that enterprise success depends much more on constant innovation than on cost efficiency.”

Good OM Reading: Global E-Waste Reaches New Levels

The amount of global e-waste — discarded electrical and electronic equipment — reached 41.8 million tons last year, according to a new United Nations University report (April 20, 2015). The report provides an unprecedented level of detail and accuracy about the size of the world’s e-waste challenge, ongoing progress in establishing specialized e-waste collection and treatment systems, and the outlook for the future.

The bulk of global e-waste in 2014 (almost 60%) was discarded kitchen, laundry, and bathroom equipment. Personal information and communication technology (ICT) devices — such as mobile phones, personal computers, and printers — accounted for 7% of e-waste last year. The-waste comprised:

12.8 million tons of small equipment (such as vacuum cleaners, microwaves, toasters, electric shavers and video cameras);
11.8 million tons of large equipment (including washer/dryers, dishwashers, electric stoves, and photovoltaic panels);
7.0 million tons of cooling and freezing equipment;
6.3 million tons of screens;
3.0 million tons of small ICT equipment; and
1.0 million ton of lamps.

This e-waste represented $52 billion of potentially reusable resources, yet little of it was collected for recovery, or even treated/disposed of in an environmentally sound manner. Less than 1/6 is thought to have been properly recycled or made available for reuse. While e-waste constitutes a valuable “urban mine” — a potential reservoir of recyclable materials — it also includes a “toxic mine” of hazardous substances that must be (but too-seldom are) managed with extreme care.

The report estimates that the e-waste discarded in 2014 contained 16,500 kilotons of iron, 1,900 kilotons of copper, and 300 tons of gold as well as significant amounts of silver, aluminum, palladium, and other potentially reusable resources. It also contained substantial amounts of health-threatening toxins such as mercury, cadmium, chromium, and ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons. Just two countries — the US and China — discarded 1/3 of the world’s total e-waste.

This valuable report contains several graphics about the recycling process that you can use when teaching Supplement 5, Sustainability in the Supply Chain.

Good OM Reading: What Successful Project Managers Do

In today’s dynamic and competitive world, a project manager’s key challenge is coping with frequent unexpected events. Despite meticulous planning, the manager may daily encounter such events as the failure of workers to show up at a site, the bankruptcy of a key vendor, a contradiction in engineering guidelines, or changes in customers’ requirements. Some of these events were anticipated but whose impacts were much stronger than expected, some could not have been predicted, and others could have been predicted but were not. All three types of events can become problems. A new research article in MIT Sloan Management Review (Spring, 2015) describes how successful project managers cope with these challenges with 4 approaches.

1. Since project progress depends on individuals who represent different disciplines and parties, collaboration is crucial for the early detection of problems as well as the quick implementation of solutions. But the various parties to the project are loosely coupled, whereas the tasks themselves are tightly coupled. When unexpected events affect one task, many other interdependent tasks are quickly affected. Thus, project success requires both interdependence and trust among the various parties.

2. Project managers faced with unexpected events employ a “rolling wave” approach to integrate planning/reviewing with learning. Recognizing that firm commitments cannot be made on the basis of volatile information, they develop plans in waves as the project unfolds and information becomes more reliable. They develop detailed short-term plans with firm commitments, while also preparing tentative long-term plans (that include redundancies, such as backup systems or human resources).

3. Successful project managers never stop expecting surprises, even though they may effect major remedial changes only a few times during a project. They’re constantly anticipating disruptions and maintaining the flexibility to respond proactively. The book Great by Choice describes one of the core behaviors of great leaders as “productive paranoia.”

4. When unexpected events affect one task, many other interdependent tasks may also be quickly impacted. Thus, solving problems as soon as they emerge is vital. Corrective action is possible only during a brief window. One study of construction project managers found that they addressed 95% of the problems during the first 7 minutes following problem detection.

Good OM Reading: Sustaining Sustainability

Steve Zaffron, CEO of the Vanto Group and co-author of the best-selling business book, The Three Laws of Performance, believes that sustainability nirvana occurs when social responsibility moves from being expressed in one-off initiatives, siloed in the corporate CSR office, to a way of being and acting that is embedded in the company culture and work habits of employees. Achieving this kind of breakthrough in an established company, with its legacy systems and time-honored practices, is proving to be a tough nut to crack for many sustainability executives, according to a new MIT Sloan Management Review (Feb. 2015) article.

Zaffron, interviewed for the article, has worked with a diverse group of organizations — from rocket-scientist NASA to labor-intensive mining — to achieve this kind of deep organizational renovation. His experience shows that leaps in human performance come less from tangible investments in things like automation, equipment or compensation schemes, and more through intangible transformations in the way people in organizations see themselves and others.

“It’s not an easy thing to change the way in which people see the world and themselves. It takes time to develop,”says Zaffron. And time is an underappreciated variable in sustainability. “It’s obvious when you say it, that sustainability means through time,” states Zaffron, but while perhaps obvious, managing time is a recurring sustainability challenge. If it interjects itself in business sustainability, time usually appears as a constraint imposed by market short-termism. “We’re talking about long-term engagements that are substantial investments,” says Zaffron. “Managers have to know they’re in for the long haul.” Unfortunately, today’s sustainability management is dominated by the search for “quick wins,” which account for over two-thirds of corporate sustainability initiatives.

As opposed to the tangible “quick wins” mindset, the intangible benefits arising from embedded sustainability behaviors take sustained effort to produce. But over time, they create differentiated capabilities that can set an organization apart in the marketplace.

Good OM Reading: The Productivity Challenge

Global economic growth is set to slow dramatically

“Over the past 50 years,” writes McKinsey’s Global Initiative Report (Jan., 2015), “global economic growth was exceptionally rapid.” The world economy expanded sixfold. Average per capita income almost tripled. Hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty. Yet unless we can dramatically improve productivity, McKinsey thinks the next 1/2 century will look very different. The rapid expansion of the past five decades will be seen as an aberration of history, and the world economy will slide back toward its relatively sluggish long-term growth rate.

The world isn’t running out of technological potential for growth. But achieving the increase in productivity required to revitalize the global economy will force business owners, managers, and workers to innovate by adopting new approaches that improve the way they operate.

McKenzie found that about 3/4 of the potential productivity growth comes from the broader adoption of existing best practices, or catch-up improvements. The remaining 1/4 comes from technological, operational, or business innovations that go beyond today’s best practices and push the frontier of the world’s GDP potential. Efforts to improve the traditionally weak productivity performance of the large and growing government and healthcare sectors around the world will be particularly important.

Business must play a critical role: aggressively upgrading capital and technology, taking risks by investing in R&D and unproven technologies or processes, and mitigating the labor pool’s erosion by providing a more flexible work environment for women and older workers, as well as training and mentorship for young people. In an environment of potentially weaker global economic growth, and definitely evolving growth dynamics, executives need to anticipate where the market opportunities will be and the competitors they will meet in those markets. Above all, companies need to be competitive in a world where productivity will increasingly be the arbiter of success or failure.

Good OM Reading: Can Parking Behavior Predict Productivity Gains?

One of the well-known experimental studies of people’s behavior is the “Stanford marshmallow experiment” in 1970 in which children were put in an room and given the following instructions: they are given one marshmallow and can eat it immediately; however, if they wait for 15 minutes without eating it, they will receive another marshmallow. The most interesting finding is that more than 10 years later, the children who resisted the temptation to eat immediately and earned the second marshmallow “were significantly more competent” and achieved higher SAT scores. In general, people who exhibit the ability to delay gratification tend to do better in career and life.

And every once in a while, we come across an academic journal article that is equally fascinating. The concept is that at the macrolevel, a metric that measures the overall effort of delaying gratification across economies would better gauge or explain economic growth differences across countries. Prof. Shaomin Li, at Old Dominion U., proposes a novel metric in his fascinating article in The International Journal of Emerging Markets (No. 4, 2014): the way that people park their cars.

Back-in parking takes more time and effort than head-in parking. Yet, it is easier, quicker, and safer when exiting. Thus Li conjectures that people who take the trouble to back in demonstrate the ability to delay gratification; they want to invest more time and effort now so that they can enjoy the fruits of their labor later. They demonstrate a culture of long-term orientation. Such behavior, says Li, should be positively associated with taking time to study, saving more money and working harder in order to enjoy life later, a trait that contributes to national productivity gains and economic growth. The table summarizes the analysis.