Informs Annual Meeting 2017

MA11

INFORMS Houston – 2017

MA11

3 - Optimal Timing of Inventory Decisions with Price Uncertainty Nikolay Osadchiy, Emory University, 1300 Clifton Rd Ne, Atlanta, GA, 30322, United States, nikolay.osadchiy@emory.edu, Vishal Gaur, Sridhar Seshadri, Marti Subrahmanyam We study the problem of optimal inventory order timing when the selling price and demand are random and their forecasts improve with time. We derive the structure of the ordering policy and study the value of order timing flexibility. 4 - Inventory Operations under the Shadow of Company Stock Price Qi Wu, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States, qxw132@case.edu, Guoming Lai Inventory management is one central problem of operations. The classical inventory theories typically focus on the operational tradeoffs to optimize the inventory decisions. In practice, however, many firms are public that often have short-term interests in their market value. Our analysis reveals that public firms may install more inventory in equilibrium to influence their earnings. We discuss the determinants of such an effect as well as the empirical evidence. 330B Revenue Management and Service Platforms Sponsored: Manufacturing & Service Oper Mgmt Sponsored Session Chair: Laurens G Debo, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, 03755, United States, laurens.g.debo@tuck.dartmouth.edu Co-Chair: Luyi Yang, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60615, United States, lyang6@chicagobooth.edu 1 - Vicarious Goal Pursuit Outweighs Herding in Crowdfunding: Evidence from Kickstarter.com Dennis Zhang, Washington University in St. Louis, 8342 Delcrest Drive, Apt 328, University City, MO, 63124, United States, denniszhang@wustl.edu, Hengchen Dai We examine backers’ contribution patterns using a novel dataset on 26,516 projects at 10-minute resolution from Kickstarter - the largest crowdfunding website where creators only receive capital committed by backers and deliver rewards if they reach a specific funding goal. 2 - Online Product Support Forums: Customers as Partners in the Service Delivery Konstantinos Stouras, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, The Darden School, University of Virginia, 100 Darden Boulevard, Charlottesville, VA, 22903, United States, kostas@virginia.edu Firms increasingly provide service to their customers via an online product support forum in which service delivery is partially delegated to an active community of firm customers (community users). Our results establish that it may be to the best interest of the firm to strategically reduce its service rate to boost a faster response rate from the community of users. 3 - The Impact of Fintech on Consumer Consumption: Evidence from Credit Card Data MA10 The recent development of FinTech has expanded the traditional banking channels. In this paper, we use a detailed consumer credit card transaction data set which contains both transactions made through traditional banking channels as well as transactions through FinTech (Alipay) Channels. We analyze the impact of the introduction of FinTech Channels on consumer consumption behaviors. 4 - Strategic Provision of Inventory Information under Competition Katherine Ashley, Montclair State University, 36 Valley Rd Apt 215, Montclair, NJ, 07042, United States, ashleyk@montclair.edu Firms in many industries provide customers with real-time inventory availability information, which is typically unverifiable by consumers. We use a game- theoretic model to characterize the information provision strategies that emerge in equilibrium when two firms compete and both customers and firms act strategically in sending and interpreting messages. Yuqian Xu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, United States, lillian.xyq@gmail.com, Anindya Ghose, Binqing Xiao

332A Economics of Service Operations Sponsored: Manufacturing & Service Oper Mgmt, Service Operations Sponsored Session Chair: Guillaume Roels, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States, groels@anderson.ucla.edu 1 - Payment Models to Coordinate Healthcare Providers with Limited Accountability Sampath Rajagopalan, University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business, 3670 Trousdale Pky Bridge Hall 400D, Los Angeles, CA, 90089, United States, raj@marshall.usc.edu, Chunyang Tong This work studies a referral based healthcare system in which general practitioners refer patients to specialist, whose capacity is limited. Moreover, it may not be possible to hold the specialist fully accountable for patient outcomes. We evaluate the effectiveness of different payment systems, including bundled and unbundled payments, in coordinating the decisions of the general practitioner and specialist by a single payer which impact referrals, specialist workload and care quality. We show how limited accountability of specialists for service outcomes interacts with payment systems to distort referral and specialist Behrooz Pourghannad, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States, behrooz@umn.edu, Saif Benjaafar, Jian-Ya Ding A growing number of businesses are being built around a model that provides customers access to a product or a service up to a specified amount or allowance. Examples include cloud-based data storage, mobile phone service plans, and fractional ownership of vacation homes, jets, and boats. We study the impact of allowing customers to trade among themselves unused portions of their allowances and examine conditions under which this is beneficial to both the firms and consumers. 3 - Designing New Services: How Much Should Customers Co-create? Stylianos Kavadias, University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, Trumpington Street, Cambrige, CB2 1AG, United Kingdom, s.kavadias@jbs.cam.ac.uk, Ioannis Bellos Service blueprints vary significantly across industries and they range all the way from minimal service provider involvement (self-service systems) to heavy engagement between the provider and the customer. How should service providers consider the “right” blueprint for the customer types they aim to attract? This presentation adopts a widely used structure in designing services (customer journeys) to identify how the structural features of the possible service touchpoints, as well as the capabilities of the service providers and the customers, shape different eventual service blueprints. 4 - Optimal Practice Processes for Performance Guillaume Roels, UCLA, 110 Westwood Plaza, Gold Hall Suite B511, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States, groels@anderson.ucla.edu We consider a practice process with a defined objective, such as arises in learning processes (e.g., studying for an exam) or training processes (e.g., training for a marathon). We introduce an analytical model that captures nonlinear returns of effort on performance, fatigue and strength accumulation, and reference effects and we characterize the optimal practice process that maximizes performance. We find that the optimal process can be N-shaped or alternate sessions of high intensity with sessions with low intensity. We validate our model with running data. decisions and impact various quality and cost metrics. 2 - Peer-to-peer Trading of Usage Allowances

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