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作者：Jiang, Zhong-Zhong; Zhao, Jinlong; Yi, Zelong; Chen, Ying-Ju; Li, Guang
作者单位：Northeastern University - China; Northeastern University - China; Northeastern University - China; Shenzhen University; Hong Kong University of Science & Technology; Queens University - Canada
摘要：Purchasing new experience products or services often involves significant quality uncertainty for both consumers and firms. Social learning through online reviews helps reduce this uncertainty but exacerbates strategic waiting, as consumers delay purchases to gain more information. This paper examines the impact of social learning on firms' pricing policies in the presence of strategic consumers under two widely adopted schemes: Contingent pricing and price guarantee. We find that while social...
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作者：Aivazian, Varouj; Chiu, Tzu-Ting; Minutti-Meza, Miguel; Vyas, Dushyantkumar
作者单位：University of Toronto; University of Toronto; Norwegian School of Economics (NHH); University of Miami; University of Toronto
摘要：This study examines the relation between political uncertainty arising from state-level election cycles and the timing of employee dismissal and plant closure notices filed by US firms under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act of 1988 (hereafter, WARN notices). We appeal to a real options framework to predict that firms delay layoff decisions and the issuance of WARN notices until the resolution of political uncertainty. Using establishment-level data on layoffs disclo...
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作者：Moosavi, Amirhossein; Ozturk, Onur; Patrick, Jonathan
作者单位：University of Ottawa
摘要：We investigate an ambulatory care scheduling problem derived from a real case in Ontario, Canada that offers multi-appointment, multi-class, multi-priority treatments in geographically distributed campuses with multiple resources. We consider a dynamic setting with uncertain patient arrival and use of the emergency department. This problem is formulated as an infinite-horizon Markov decision process model. Since we cannot solve large-sized instances via conventional approaches, we hybridize th...
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作者：Gu, Wei; Li, Meng; Zhang, Shichen
作者单位：University of Science & Technology Beijing; University of Houston System; University of Houston; Tianjin University
摘要：In this article, we explore the impact of implementing an algorithmic supervisor, a data analytics tool that offers real-time feedback to employees, on their overall performance. We collaborate with a leading service company that initiated the transition from human supervisors to an algorithmic supervisor for managing call agents in their outbound call center on September 18, 2019. We collect data for 220,085 calls over a span of 6 months-that is, 3 months before and 3 months after the introdu...
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作者：Somanchi, Sriram; Kanuri, Vamsi K.; Telang, Rahul
作者单位：University of Notre Dame; Carnegie Mellon University
摘要：The financial industry is plagued with account-based fraudulent transactions in which perpetrators surreptitiously siphon away money from customer accounts. To address this recurrent problem, service operations teams at financial institutions (e.g., the fraud detection and mitigation teams) spend millions yearly identifying perpetrators, attributing blame, and averting customer churn. However, in the vast majority of cases, the service operations teams cannot trace fraudulent transactions back...
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作者：Hou, Liwen; Qu, Xinxue (Shawn); Chen, Yixing; Xue, Ling
作者单位：Shanghai Jiao Tong University; University of Notre Dame; University System of Georgia; University of Georgia
摘要：Platform firms are increasingly investing in value-added services (VAS), believing these investments in VAS universally contribute to their success. Although many studies have examined platform firms' core services (e.g., intermediation), systematic analyses of VAS provision strategies remain limited. In this article, we develop a game-theoretic model to analyze (1) the conditions under which platform firms benefit from providing VAS and (2) to which side(s) platform firms should provide VAS. ...
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作者：Kong, Demei; Xie, Karen; Yang, Jun
作者单位：Tsinghua University; Huazhong University of Science & Technology; University of Connecticut
摘要：To mitigate information asymmetry, Expert Review Programs, in which experts evaluate products on multiple dimensions, have gained traction on platforms. However, the role of multidimensional expert reviews and how they affect consumer behaviors remain unknown. Using an empirical opportunity on an automobile review platform, we investigate how multidimensional expert reviews affect subsequent consumer ratings and the underlying mechanism. Our findings first reveal that expert reviews tend to be...
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作者：Ge, Jiwen; Tomlin, Brian
作者单位：Dongbei University of Finance & Economics; Universidade Nova de Lisboa; Dartmouth College
摘要：We explore retail supply chains in emerging markets in which a manufacturer can reach consumers by selling its product through very small independent stores (nanostores) and/or through a supermarket. Nanostores offer consumers the advantage of proximity, but supermarkets offer the advantage of bulk buying. We explore the competition between the supermarket and nanostores and examine the manufacturer's role in shaping the retail market structure for its product through wholesale price contracts...
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作者：Li, Chaofan; Liu, Qiliang; Wang, Wenming; Zeng, Cheng (Colin); Zhou, Pin
作者单位：Wuhan University of Technology; Jiangxi University of Finance & Economics; Zhejiang University; Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Huazhong Agricultural University
摘要：This study examines the relationship between major customer concentration and supplier firms' adoption of blockchain. Using a sample of 9,745 Chinese firm-year observations spanning 2018-2021, we find that the likelihood of suppliers' blockchain technology adoption in supply chain management is negatively associated with major customer concentration. The negative relation is reduced when supplier firms possess greater bargaining power and demonstrate governance mechanisms against information l...
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作者：Krass, Dmitry; Ovchinnikov, Anton
作者单位：University of Toronto; Queens University - Canada; INSEAD Business School
摘要：We analyze how N firms producing a commodity good with a polluting by-product respond to environmental taxes. These firms vary in operational and environmental efficiency. Under Cournot competition, we examine two demand functions: iso-elastic and linear. We establish the existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium and examine how it changes with tax levels and environmental efficiency. Our findings suggest that taxes may not always benefit firms with green, low-cost technologies, as they erod...
