To revitalize local communities and economies, more not-for-profit food cooperatives (coops) are establishing their presence in less-populated areas or poor communities in recent years. This trend has motivated us to examine the entry conditions for food coops with the following two related...

Economic growth in many countries is increasingly driven by successful startups that operate as online platforms. These success stories have motivated us to define and classify various online platforms according to their business models. This study discusses strategic and operational issues...

We study multiple parallel contests where contest organizers elicit solutions to innovation-related problems from a set of solvers. Each solver may participate in multiple contests and exert effort to improve her solution for each contest she enters, but the quality of her solution at each...

As consumers become more conscious about social issues, they gain an additional "social benefit" when purchasing from a socially responsible retailer (or brand). This trend has motivated more socially responsible retailers (or brands) to enter the market with a "pre-commitment" to donate a...

We study parallel innovation contests where contest organizers elicit innovative solutions to a set of problems from a group of solvers with limited (financial, time, cognitive) resources. The quality of a solver's solution improves with their effort, yet it is also subject to an output...

In a contest in which solvers with heterogeneous expertise exert effort to develop solutions, a recent paper (Terwiesch, C., Y. Xu. 2008. Innovation contests, open innovation and multiagent problem solving. Management Science. 54(9) 1529--1543) argues that as more solvers enter the contest,...