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作者:Ertekin, Necati; Atasu, Atalay; Agrawal, Vishal V.
作者单位:University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; INSEAD Business School; Georgetown University
摘要:Most retailers offer trade-in programs that allow customers not only to trade-in a used product in part payment for the purchase of a new one, but also to return the new product purchased via a trade-in. In this context, we study how a jewelry trade-in program affects sales and returns of trade-in eligible versus ineligible new products, and how such programs can be better designed to improve profitability. We conduct an empirical analysis using data from a national jewelry retailer that incre...
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作者:Jiang, Baojun; Jin, Yannan; Liu, Chongguang; Wei, Hang
作者单位:Washington University (WUSTL); Shanghai University of Finance & Economics; Fudan University; Shanghai University of Finance & Economics
摘要:In modern consumer technology industries, manufacturers make substantial upfront investments in product quality, despite facing significant demand uncertainty-particularly regarding the size of the high-valuation segment that values quality highly. Dynamic pricing, where retailers adjust prices based on demand learning in the early period, may help mitigate this uncertainty. We develop a game-theoretic model to examine how a retailer's dynamic pricing capability impacts a manufacturer's wholes...
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作者:Jiang, X.; Tang, L-C; Ye, Z.; Zhang, X.
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作者:Liu, Xiexin; Chen, Xinwei
作者单位:Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Pennsylvania State University; University of Tulsa
摘要:Retail recommendation systems increasingly operate as real-time decision engines that must personalize suggestions while respecting operational constraints such as inventory availability, category rules, and promotion policies. This is especially challenging in basket-based retail because transactions are set-valued and the observed checkout order is operational rather than behavioral. We study a governed agentic AI system for basket recommendation in which a Bayesian consumer world model serv...
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作者:Martagan, Tugce
作者单位:Northeastern University
摘要:There are more than 7,000 known rare diseases, yet around 95 % of them lack effective treatments. This paper explores how Operations Management (OM) research can help improve patient access to rare disease treatments. We first examine key challenges and opportunities from the perspectives of governments, industry, insurers, and patients. We then outline future research directions, focusing on regulatory frameworks, subsidy and incentive schemes, pricing and coverage decisions, (bio)pharmaceuti...
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作者:Chen, Hongqiao; He, Yihua; Qi, Jin; Zhang, Lianmin
作者单位:Nanjing University; Hong Kong University of Science & Technology; The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
摘要:We study a distributionally robust pricing model aimed at maximizing the worst-case profit under limited knowledge of consumers' valuation distribution. In addition to mean and variance, we incorporate asymmetric distributional information through semivariance, and then explore the robust optimal posted and randomized pricing strategy. We obtain the robust posted price and show that several series of asymptotic three-point distributions can approach the worst case gradually. The inclusion of a...
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作者:Ye, Fei; Liang, Lunhai; Cheng, T. C. Edwin; Li, Yina; Zhang, Minhao; Wang, Xiaojun
作者单位:South China University of Technology; Zhongnan University of Economics & Law; Hong Kong Polytechnic University; University of Bristol; University of Birmingham
摘要:Online consumer reviews (OCRs) publicly disclose consumer uncertainty about product valuations, enabling firms to acquire more accurate demand information. This paper develops a game-theoretic model in which a manufacturer sells products through both physical stores and a third-party online platform, which may operate in reselling or agency business modes. We investigate the interplay between OCR disclosure and business mode choices. We find that the manufacturer and the platform generally sha...
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作者:Xing, Wenqian; Hua, Cheng
作者单位:Stanford University; Shanghai Jiao Tong University
摘要:Ambulance offload delays occur when emergency medical service (EMS) personnel are unable to promptly transfer patients to overwhelmed emergency departments. These delays postpone necessary care for the patient and hinder the EMS system from attending to new emergencies. This study introduces a real-time multi-priority patient transfer policy aimed at reducing these delays. We model the patient transfer problem as a stochastic dynamic program based on post-decision states, and develop approxima...
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作者:Dada, Maqbool; Hathaway, Brett; Kagan, Evgeny
作者单位:Johns Hopkins University; Brigham Young University
摘要:Customer service has evolved beyond in-person visits and phone calls to include live chat, AI chatbots and social media, among other contact options. Service providers typically refer to these contact modalities as channels. Within each channel, customer service agents are tasked with managing and resolving a stream of inbound service requests. Each request involves milestones where the agent must decide whether to keep assisting the customer or to transfer them to a more skilled-and often cos...
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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...