Should Start-up Companies Be Cautious? Inventory Policies Which Maximise Survival Probabilities

T. W. Archibald, L. C. Thomas, J. M. Betts and R. B. Johnston
Additional contact information
T. W. Archibald: Department of Business Studies, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9JY, United Kingdom
L. C. Thomas: School of Management, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom
J. M. Betts: Department of Business Systems, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia
R. B. Johnston: Department of Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia

Management Science, 2002, vol. 48, issue 9, 1161-1174

Abstract: New start-up companies, which are considered to be a vital ingredient in a successful economy, have a different objective than established companies: They want to maximise their chance of long-term survival. We examine the implications for their operating decisions of this different criterion by considering an abstraction of the inventory problem faced by a start-up manufacturing company. The problem is modelled under two criteria as a Markov decision process; the characteristics of the optimal policies under the two criteria are compared. It is shown that although the start-up company should be more conservative in its component purchasing strategy than if it were a well-established company, it should not be too conservative. Nor is its strategy monotone in the amount of capital it has available. The models are extended to allow for interest on investment and inflation.

Keywords: Markov Decision Processes; Inventory; Start-up Firms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

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