Lee, Hsiao-Hui; Pinker, Edieal J.; Shumsky, Robert A. - In: Management Science 58 (2012) 8, pp. 1569-1584
This paper studies outsourcing decisions for a two-level service process in which the first level serves as a gatekeeper for a second level of experts. The objective of the system operator (the client) is to minimize the sum of staffing costs, customer waiting costs, and mistreatment costs due...