Commercial AI solutions provide analysts and managers with data-driven business intelligence for a wide range of decisions, such as demand forecasting and pricing. However, human analysts may have their own insights and experiences about the decision-making that is at odds with the algorithmic...

Problem definition: We study customer-centric privacy management in service systems and explore the consequences of extended control over personal information by customers in such systems.Methodology: We adopt a stylized queueing model to capture a service environment that features a service...

Archimedes once said "give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world." In this paper, we study the optimal timing of contingently placing a "fulcrum" in the context of crowdfunding, with the potential of tilting the random pledging process from failure to success. Specifically, we consider a...

We provide a theory that unifies the long tail and blockbuster phenomena. Specifically, we analyze a three-stage game where, first, a large number of potential firms make entry decisions, then those who stay in the market decide on the investment in its product, and lastly customers with...

Trade credit is often extended by suppliers to buyers who often have easier access to external financing. Moreover, many buyers also delay paying their suppliers beyond the agreed due day. Prior literature attributes this phenomenon to quality assurance or buyer's abuse of market power. In this...

Thanks to the abundant user-generated content on the review websites, customers can easily make a casual inference on the service speed through observing and learning from others' service experiences. We study a service system where customers make their join-or-balk decisions based on a sample...

We apply Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning (MADRL) to inventory management problems with multiple echelons and evaluate MADRL's performance to minimize the overall costs of a supply chain. We also examine whether the upfront-only information-sharing mechanism used in MADRL helps alleviate...

Does the social comparison still intensify the competition among sellers in volatile markets? In this paper, we study the price competition in markets with volatile sizes and, importantly, with sellers that socially compare their profits with each other ex post for any realization of market...