How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections

Maria  Ibanez; Michael W. Toffel

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2018

How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections

Abstract

Many production processes are subject to inspection to ensure they meet quality, safety, and environmental standards imposed by companies and regulators. Inspection accuracy is critical to inspections being a useful input to assessing risks, allocating quality improvement resources, and making sourcing decisions. This paper examines how the scheduling of inspections risks introducing bias that erodes inspection quality by altering inspector stringency. In particular, we theorize that inspection results are affected by (a) the inspection outcomes at the inspector’s prior inspected establishment and (b) when the inspection occurs within an inspector’s daily schedule. Analyzing thousands of food safety inspections of restaurants and other food-handling establishments, we find that inspectors cite more violations after inspecting establishments that exhibited worse compliance or greater deterioration in compliance. Inspectors cite fewer violations in successive inspections throughout the day and when inspections risk prolonging their typical workday. Our estimates suggest that, if the outcome effects were amplified by 100% and the daily schedule effects were fully mitigated (that is, reduced by 100%), the increase in inspectors’ detection rates would result in their citing an average of 9.9% more violations. Understanding these biases can help managers develop alternative scheduling regimes that reduce bias in quality assessments in domains such as food safety, process quality, occupational safety, working conditions, and regulatory compliance.

Keywords: Assessment; quality; bias; inspection; scheduling; Econometric Analysis; Empirical Research; regulation; Health; Food; Safety; Quality; Performance Consistency; Performance Evaluation; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry;

Language: English

Format: Print

66 pages

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Citation:

Ibanez, Maria, and Michael W. Toffel. "How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-090, April 2017. (Revised October 2018. Formerly titled "Assessing the Quality of Quality Assessment: The Role of Scheduling". Featured in Forbes, Food Safety Magazine, and Food Safety News.)

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The president of Harvard University is facing growing pressure from students, alumni, and other climate change activists that are urging the university to divest its multi-billion dollar endowment from fossil fuel companies. The case summarizes the arguments for and against Harvard divesting, examining past examples of Harvard’s investment decisions and the financial implications of divestment.

Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2018 (Revised January 2020)

JUUL and the Vaping Revolution

Michael W. Toffel, John Masko and Sarah Mehta

In the summer of 2018, San Francisco–based electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) maker JUUL Labs, was experiencing exponential growth. Sales of its JUUL e-cigarette had increased by 783% over the preceding year, projected revenues for 2018 topped $940 million, and the company had captured over 72% of the U.S. e-cigarette market. The company’s success had thrust it into the spotlight, and JUUL Labs found itself at the center of considerable controversy. Whereas the company’s stated goal was to provide tobacco smokers with a less harmful e-cigarette alternative, JUUL Labs’s products had proven widely popular with teenage high school students who had never smoked. Some advocacy groups and public policy makers speculated that the company had purposefully marketed its products to minors—an allegation JUUL Labs’s executives strongly denied. The company now faced an FDA probe and investigations by at least two state attorney generals. It needed a strategy to deal with its mounting regulatory and public relations problems.

Keywords: electronic cigarettes; E-Cigarettes; vaping; Nicotine Replacement; JUUL; Juuling; Advertising; Online Advertising; Customers; Innovation and Invention; Marketing; Ethics; Brands and Branding; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Social Issues; Technology; Technology Industry;

Citation:

Toffel, Michael W., John Masko, and Sarah Mehta. "JUUL and the Vaping Revolution." Harvard Business School Case 619-006, November 2018. (Revised January 2020.) View Details

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How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections

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