Technology (Elmsford, N.Y.)最新文献

{"title":"Operational Transparency on Crowdfunding Platforms: Effect on Donations for Emergency Response","authors":"Jorge Mejia, Gloria Urrea, Alfonso Pedraza Martinez","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3168728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3168728","url":null,"abstract":"Online crowdfunding has emerged as a powerful tool to raise funds for emergency response. Crowdfunding campaigns can use two transparency tools to attract donors: updates and certification. Updates are additional messages that the organizer issues after launching the campaign and are a form of operational transparency when they communicate the campaign’s work to donors. Alternatively, certification is a form of conventional transparency that ensures the campaign truly benefits a charitable purpose. Using an econometric analysis, we investigate the effects of transparency on donations. We study the direction of causality and mechanisms behind work‐related updates by conducting an experiment. Results from the econometric analysis using over 100,000 campaigns benefiting victims of emergencies reveal that both updates and certification have positive effects on donations. Each additional work‐related word in an update (operational transparency) increases donations on average by $65 per month, while certification (conventional transparency) raises funds on average by $22 per month. Results from the experiment confirm the direction of causality; posting work‐related updates in crowdfunding campaigns increases donations. Two mechanisms explain this effect: donors’ enhanced perceptions of effort and perceptions of trust.","PeriodicalId":82888,"journal":{"name":"Technology (Elmsford, N.Y.)","volume":"127 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86278249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"On the Performance of Tailored Base-Surge Policies: Theory and Application at Walmart.Com","authors":"Linwei Xin, Long He, Jagtej Bewli, J. Bowman, H. Feng, Zhiwei Qin","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3090177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3090177","url":null,"abstract":"Problem Definition: Many import items sold at Walmart.com have two suppliers: one is faster and has a random production capacity limit while the other is slower and has infinite capacity. The lead time difference of the two suppliers could be as large as 12 weeks. Walmart.com faces an important and challenging supply chain problem and must make routine inventory replenishment decisions. \u0000Academic/Practical Relevance: Dual-sourcing inventory models have been extensively studied in academia and dual-sourcing strategies have been widely implemented in practice. Recently, the so-called Tailored Base-Surge (TBS) policy has begun to receive more attention and demonstrated good performance in existing dual-sourcing models. TBS is intuitive and easy to manage: a constant-order is placed from the slow (regular) supplier every period and a base-stock policy is adapted from the fast (express) supplier. \u0000Methodology: This paper develops a new dual-sourcing inventory model incorporating large lead time difference as well as random capacity of the express supplier, and investigates the performance of TBS both theoretically and empirically by using Walmart’s data. \u0000Results: We prove that a TBS policy is asymptotically optimal as the regular lead time grows, extending the previous asymptotic optimality of TBS policies in the dual-sourcing system without random capacities. We complement the theory and compare TBS with three well-known heuristics in a “simulated” real-world setting through model calibration by using historical sales data from Walmart.com. Our results demonstrate that TBS outperforms others as for minimizing the long-run average inventory cost. In particular, the inventory cost would be reduced by at least 33% if adapting a TBS policy. Our results also suggest that at an aggregate level, TBS could reduce Weeks of Supply by 2.7 weeks while increasing Met Demand by 3.3% compared with the single-sourcing policy using only the import supplier. \u0000Managerial Implications: Our results show that if the proposed dual-sourcing model and algorithm are adapted, Walmart’s inventory system would be significantly improved especially for import items.","PeriodicalId":82888,"journal":{"name":"Technology (Elmsford, N.Y.)","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88791618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sourcing Strategies for Online Retail Marketplaces","authors":"V. Gaur, Nikolay Osadchiy, S. Seshadri, M. Subrahmanyam","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2677045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2677045","url":null,"abstract":"We study a problem of optimal sourcing for a retailer who sells a seasonal product in an online marketplace such as Amazon marketplace. The problem is characterized by uncertain demand, uncertain selling price, and low profit margins. Sourcing choices are differentiated by cost and available lead times -- delaying to a shorter lead time is more expensive, but yields more accurate information about selling price and demand. Ahead of the season, the retailer faces a continuous time decision problem about when to buy and in what quantity. We consider two sourcing strategies: an optimal pre-committed ordering time strategy and an optimal time-flexible ordering strategy. Under the latter strategy, the optimal order time follows a double threshold policy in the selling price variable: it is optimal to order if the price is within a certain band, and wait otherwise. Interestingly, the optimal order time may be earlier than that in the pre-committed strategy. By characterizing both strategies, we identify scenarios when time-flexible ordering can be mutually beneficial for the retailer and the supplier, leading to higher retailer's profits and supplier's revenues. In the high price volatility scenarios, order timing flexibility can be critical for sustaining the business between retailers and suppliers.","PeriodicalId":82888,"journal":{"name":"Technology (Elmsford, N.Y.)","volume":"73 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85532592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Promoting Solar Panel Investments: Feed-in-Tariff Versus Tax-Rebate Policies","authors":"V. Babich, R. Lobel, Şafak Yücel","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3051989","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3051989","url":null,"abstract":"Problem Definition: Governments have adopted various subsidy policies to promote investment in renewable energy sources, such as rooftop solar panels. The German government uses a feed-in-tariff policy that provides a guaranteed stream of payments for each unit of electricity generated by a household. In contrast, the U.S. government uses a tax-rebate policy that reduces the initial investment cost and the household receives the retail price for the generated electricity. In this paper, we study the key practical factors that favor one policy over the other from the perspective of the government. These factors are the heterogeneity in the generating efficiency, the variability in the electricity price, and the variability in the investment cost. Academic Relevance: Unlike the previous literature on the feed-in-tariff and tax-rebate policies, we focus on the effects of variability on a household's investment timing. We identify the optimal policy for the government to manage the aggregate household investment, accounting for the heterogeneity in efficiency. Methodology: We consider an infinite-horizon, continuous-time model where the government moves first and announces either a feed-in tariff or tax rebate. Then, each household dynamically decides if and when to invest in a unit of solar panel. The objective of the government is to maximize the expected value of a subsidy policy, i.e., the difference between the societal benefit of solar panel investments and the subsidy cost over time. Results: We characterize the timing of the investment decision of the households and the optimal subsidy parameters for the government. We identify which practical factors favor the feed-in-tariff or the tax-rebate policy. Policy Implications: Our results suggest that a government should prefer the feed-in-tariff policy when the electricity price is highly uncertain. Intuitively, feed-in-tariff policy eliminates the price variability; thus, it removes the strategic delay in the investment. The tax-rebate policy should be adopted if the households are heterogeneous in generating efficiency, if the investment cost is highly variable, or if the price and cost uncertainty are positively correlated.","PeriodicalId":82888,"journal":{"name":"Technology (Elmsford, N.Y.)","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87554301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Interval Solutions for TU-Games","authors":"R. van den Brink, O. Palanci, Sirma Zeynep Alparslan-Gok","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3048803","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3048803","url":null,"abstract":"Standard solutions for TU-games assign to every TU-game a payoff vector. However, if there is uncertainty about the payoff allocation then we cannot just assign a specific payoff to every player. Therefore, in this paper we introduce interval solutions for TU-games which assign to every TU-game a vector of payoff intervals. Since the solution we propose uses marginal vectors of the interval game, we need to apply a difference operator on intervals. Applying the subtraction operator of Moore (1979), we define an interval solution for TU-games, and we provide an axiomatization.","PeriodicalId":82888,"journal":{"name":"Technology (Elmsford, N.Y.)","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86000027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Optimal Grants and Subsidies for Development Supply Chains: Case of Solar Lanterns in Haiti","authors":"James Knuckles, M. Sodhi, Christopher S. Tang, Jiayi Joey Yu","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3060590","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3060590","url":null,"abstract":"Problem definition: In supply chains for subsidised products sold to low income families, there is a question about who should be subsidised in the supply chain and to what extent, and whether retail competition or having substitutable products matters. \u0000Academic/practical relevance: By introducing and analyzing “development supply chains” in which transactions are commercial but grants and subsidies are needed for affordability, we show that donors such as USAID or World Bank need to understand and exploit supply chain structure, including retail competition and product subsitutability. \u0000Methodology: We develop stylised models to analyse optimal grants and subsidies for a three-echelon supply chain of manufacturers, retailers and consumers. Successive models focus on manufacturers and grants, and on retailers and consumers, adding substitutable products and competition in retail. \u0000Results: A “lump-sum” grant enables the donor to generate an indirect incentive for the manufacturer to make R&D investment to reduce its own unit cost and a direct incentive to reduce its wholesale price for retailers. The donor can subsidize either the retailer or the customer, and the total subsidy per unit has an optimal level. Having choice between a more preferred and a less preferred substitutable product can increase the number of beneficiaries. Subsidizing competing retailers can increase the number of beneficiaries although at the expense of reduced margins (but higher units sold). In all cases, margins for the retailer echelon remain positive, supporting the “development” goal. \u0000Managerial implications: Donors must coordinate within different programmes along the entire supply chain. They must encourage substitutable products with support for higher quality, higher cost products as well as retail competition. Unit subsidies to the retailer, micro-entrepreneur, or customer are economically equivalent, so transaction costs should drive the decision for where to subsidise the supply chain.","PeriodicalId":82888,"journal":{"name":"Technology (Elmsford, N.Y.)","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75898809","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Impact of Parallel Imports on Pricing and Product Launch Decisions in Pharmaceutical Industry","authors":"M. Altug, Ozge Sahin","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3029686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3029686","url":null,"abstract":"Product launch and pricing decisions in the pharmaceutical industry across different countries are complex. Although introducing a newly developed drug to every country is beneficial to patients worldwide, doing so may have adverse implications for drug developers, such as the emergence of parallel imports. We study a pharmaceutical firm that already introduced a pioneering drug in its home country, where the product is protected by patent rules. The firm decides whether to launch in a second country in the same region, where parallel import between these two countries is feasible and profitable for the parallel importer. We characterize the joint pricing and product launch decision. We show the firm chooses one of three strategies: (i) launch and accommodate parallel import, (ii) launch and deter parallel import, and (iii) not launch. We show that firms are more likely not to launch the drug when the drug price is determined through a negotiation between the firm and the government. We discuss how insurance coverage, market size, quality perception of the parallel imported drug, and valuations affect these strategies. We then study the impact of launch and pricing decisions on social welfare and discuss policy implications for the regulators and potential strategies for the firm to mitigate the negative effects of a parallel import threat. We also study the impact of perfect and imperfect competition among parallel import firms on firm's price and launch decisions. Finally, we discuss the practice of distributing rebates as a post‐launch strategy to manage parallel imports.","PeriodicalId":82888,"journal":{"name":"Technology (Elmsford, N.Y.)","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83117864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Help or Hindrance? The Role of Familiarity in Collaborative Product Development","authors":"Karthik Ramachandran, Necati Tereyağoğlu, Murat E. Unal","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3000522","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3000522","url":null,"abstract":"Problem definition: For products developed through a collaboration of specialized groups, success requires craft and engineering ingenuity from designers who focus on specific attributes, coupled with synchronized coordination between various design groups. We study the relationship between a development team’s composition and the performance of the new product. \u0000 \u0000Academic / Practical Relevance: While shared work experience in the team -- or familiarity -- can improve coordination, it can deter creativity. We provide empirical evidence regarding the effects of overall team familiarity, familiarity within and across roles, and the formative experiences of teams on the performance of innovative products. We offer actionable insights for improving the formation of new product development teams. \u0000 \u0000Methodology: We empirically study product development in the video game industry by coupling a granular database of development credits with sales data for video games. Our novel dataset includes the performance of 752 games, supplemented with the work histories of 13,230 contributors recorded over 100,000 prior games. \u0000 \u0000Results: Overall, team familiarity is associated with a decrease in the product’s market performance. This is driven by the negative effect of familiarity among designers, and the negative effect of familiarity between designers and coordinators. While familiarity among coordinators has a positive effect on performance, it is insufficient to overcome the negative effect seen in creative roles. Further, the positive effect of familiarity among coordinators is stronger when the familiarity is built through coordination roles (rather than design roles). \u0000 \u0000Managerial Implications: Firms can improve the performance of new product development teams by actively considering familiarity among team members. Specifically, our results suggest that infusing fluidity in creative roles and maintaining stability in coordination roles could improve the performance of new products.","PeriodicalId":82888,"journal":{"name":"Technology (Elmsford, N.Y.)","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75712057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"General Optimization Concept in Designing Supply Chain Network for a Manufacturer","authors":"Nilaish Nilaish","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2970887","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2970887","url":null,"abstract":"The Optimization principles are now considered center of Supply Chain Management (SCM) process. In this paper we will review conceptually the general approach of Optimization of Supply Chain Network for manufacturers. The mathematical modelling which are used for the designing Supply Chain Network are listed and are explained. These models are proved useful for manufacturers who are running factories. Generally SCM managers are trying to maximize the profitable operation of their manufacturing and distribution supply chain. This could include measures like maximizing Gross Margin Return On Inventory Invested (GMROII) (balancing the cost of inventory in the supply chain with availability to the customer). Minimizing total operating expenses (transportation, inventory and manufacturing), or maximizing gross profit of products distributed through the supply chain.","PeriodicalId":82888,"journal":{"name":"Technology (Elmsford, N.Y.)","volume":"538 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77711645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Wright Meets Markowitz: How Standard Portfolio Theory Changes When Assets Are Technologies Following Experience Curves","authors":"Rupert Way, F. Lafond, F. Lillo, V. Panchenko, J. Farmer","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2965695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2965695","url":null,"abstract":"We consider how to optimally allocate investments in a portfolio of competing technologies using the standard mean-variance framework of portfolio theory. We assume that technologies follow the empirically observed relationship known as Wright's law, also called a \"learning curve\" or \"experience curve\", which postulates that costs drop as cumulative production increases. This introduces a positive feedback between cost and investment that complicates the portfolio problem, leading to multiple local optima, and causing a trade-off between concentrating investments in one project to spur rapid progress vs. diversifying over many projects to hedge against failure. We study the two-technology case and characterize the optimal diversification in terms of progress rates, variability, initial costs, initial experience, risk aversion, discount rate and total demand. The efficient frontier framework is used to visualize technology portfolios and show how feedback results in nonlinear distortions of the feasible set. For the two-period case, in which learning and uncertainty interact with discounting, we compare different scenarios and find that the discount rate plays a critical role.","PeriodicalId":82888,"journal":{"name":"Technology (Elmsford, N.Y.)","volume":"272 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83511829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}