Problem definition: Many studies have examined quantitative customer reviews (i.e., star ratings) and found them to be a reliable source of information that has a positive effect on product demand. Yet the effect of qualitative customer reviews (i.e., text reviews) on demand has been less...

This paper studies service systems with gatekeepers who diagnose a customer problem and then either refer the customer to an expert or attempt treatment. The probability of successful treatment by a gatekeeper decreases as the problem's complexity increases. We determine the optimal staffing...

This study compares the efficacy of some commonly observed vendor selection and contracting mechanisms with respect to two key challenges in service outsourcing: vendor selection and contract efficiency. We show that competitive bidding yields good selection but contract inefficiency (positive...

We study incentive alignment to coordinate operations in humanitarian settings. Our research focuses on transportation, the second largest overhead cost to humanitarian organizations after personnel. Motivated by field research, we study the fleet size problem from a managerial perspective. In...

In this paper, we examine contracts to coordinate the capacity decision of a vendor who has been hired by a client to provide call center support. We consider a variety of contracts, all based on our observations of contracts used by one large vendor. We examine the role of different contract...