Many firms across the world are discovering and benefiting from the ability to identify, recover and reuse industrial by-products from other firms in traditionally unrelated industries. We examine how the formation of a by-product synergy between two firms, in different industries, and its...

Technology transfer offers global firms an opportunity to reduce the costs involved in serving emerging markets as well as to source from low-cost locations for their home markets. However, it also poses a potential risk of imitation by local competitors who may enter the market(s). We introduce...

In recent years, criticism of online marketplaces has been incessant because of the widespread presence of counterfeit goods. This study develops an analytical framework to investigate the interactions among an online marketplace, an authentic brand seller, and a counterfeiter of the brand. Both...

Firms enjoy declining cost per unit of output with increasing cumulative output in a variety of industries, which gives rise to consumer concerns about transaction fairness. Consumers are less likely to purchase from a firm if it continues to reap an unfairly high profit margin. Intuitively,...

We study how the presence of consumers' peer-to-peer sharing option in addition to exclusive ownership affects sellers' pricing and product design decisions, as well as consumers' benefits. We identify the conditions in which a seller would accommodate or hinder sharing by pricing the product...

Product assortment is a critical competitive tool for retailers to increase sales, maximize profits, and attain customer satisfaction. Increasingly, more and more retailers provide in-store product assortment information online or via smartphone apps for consumers to check if their preferred...

Many product markets today are characterized by the existence of a retailer (e.g., Home Depot, Toys R Us) that serves as gatekeeper of new product introductions. Recently, virtually all such retailers have established online stores to expand their shelf spaces as well as their customer bases. In...

Using data involving customer-supplier relationships and a large sample of U.S. publicly listed firms, our study documents a negative and statistically significant relationship between economic-policy uncertainty and firms’ customer-base concentration. The negative relation is predominant in...

Using the staggered corporate income tax changes across US states, we find that tax increases in states where customers operate significantly reduce their suppliers’ return on assets, and operating and gross profit margins. Such effect is more pronounced for suppliers who have high sales...