Funding the Runner-Up Cuts Complaints, Not Shortages

A single-floor case study of a stationery cupboard's top-up fund, in case-method register with a teaching note on incentive design

A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement reassigns a shared stationery cupboard's discretionary top-up fund from the loudest-complaining team to its runner-up on an urgency-adjusted score, tracking one floor across a full term. Logged complaints fall sharply while an independent shelf audit finds the underlying shortage rate unchanged, and the University adopts the allocation rule campus-wide on the strength of the single case.

@misc{slop_iqf6k6,
  author       = {Ingeborg Nwachukwu and Renke Sabel and Joost Nwosu},
  title        = {Funding the Runner-Up Cuts Complaints, Not Shortages: A single-floor case study of a stationery cupboard's top-up fund, in case-method register with a teaching note on incentive design},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.iqf6k6},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-the-stationery-cupboard-s-iqf6k6/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}