Pub Date : 2024-03-05DOI: 10.1177/10591478241238969
Shengya Hua, Ying Lei, Xin Zhai
In choosing healthcare services, price and waiting time are two important factors that matter to patients. Price is set by healthcare providers, while waiting time is usually endogenously determined by patient choice and the healthcare provider’s capacity investment. We study the pricing and capacity design for profit-driven hospitals offering two types of healthcare services—regular and premium—serving heterogeneous patients who choose from either of the two types of services. Patients make their choices based on both price and endogenously determined equilibrium waiting time. We then benchmark profit-driven hospitals to welfare-driven hospitals to reveal how the behaviors of for-profit hospitals deviate from the socially optimal outcomes in patients waiting, service capacity, and price. We find that fewer patients are treated by premium services in profit-driven hospitals, and thus profit-driven hospitals invest less in premium service capacity and charge a higher premium for premium services than welfare-driven hospitals. These inefficiency distortions exist in profit-driven hospitals primarily because they are incentivized to differentiate between the waiting times of the two types of service to induce patients to pay a higher premium for premium services. Our results also show that if the inefficiency in patient partition is corrected, profit-driven hospitals would choose the welfare-maximizing level of premium service capacity and thus achieve socially optimal results. However, we also find that regulations such as price ceiling and capacity regulation cannot fully correct the inefficiency in patient partition and capacity decisions of profit-driven hospitals. Lastly, the model is extended in several ways to ensure robustness.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Pricing and Capacity Design for Profit-driven and Welfare-driven Healthcare Providers","authors":"Shengya Hua, Ying Lei, Xin Zhai","doi":"10.1177/10591478241238969","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241238969","url":null,"abstract":"In choosing healthcare services, price and waiting time are two important factors that matter to patients. Price is set by healthcare providers, while waiting time is usually endogenously determined by patient choice and the healthcare provider’s capacity investment. We study the pricing and capacity design for profit-driven hospitals offering two types of healthcare services—regular and premium—serving heterogeneous patients who choose from either of the two types of services. Patients make their choices based on both price and endogenously determined equilibrium waiting time. We then benchmark profit-driven hospitals to welfare-driven hospitals to reveal how the behaviors of for-profit hospitals deviate from the socially optimal outcomes in patients waiting, service capacity, and price. We find that fewer patients are treated by premium services in profit-driven hospitals, and thus profit-driven hospitals invest less in premium service capacity and charge a higher premium for premium services than welfare-driven hospitals. These inefficiency distortions exist in profit-driven hospitals primarily because they are incentivized to differentiate between the waiting times of the two types of service to induce patients to pay a higher premium for premium services. Our results also show that if the inefficiency in patient partition is corrected, profit-driven hospitals would choose the welfare-maximizing level of premium service capacity and thus achieve socially optimal results. However, we also find that regulations such as price ceiling and capacity regulation cannot fully correct the inefficiency in patient partition and capacity decisions of profit-driven hospitals. Lastly, the model is extended in several ways to ensure robustness.","PeriodicalId":20623,"journal":{"name":"Production and Operations Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140264347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-05DOI: 10.1177/10591478241238973
Research suggests that workgroup diversity influences various group and organizational-level outcomes. However, few studies consider its impact at the individual level, particularly in knowledge-related work, where workers have considerable discretion in making decisions. Our study aims to fill this gap by examining two significant types of workgroup diversity – gender diversity, a kind of bio-demographic diversity, and specialization diversity, a kind of job-related diversity – in a healthcare setting. Using detailed data on the entire patient population of Florida hospitals (10.14 million patients), including 25,187 physicians across 240 hospitals over a period of four years, we find that physicians who work in departments with more diverse colleagues (in terms of gender and specialization) have better patient outcomes, for example, a shorter stay, lower cost of treatment and increased likelihood of discharge to home. We find that the impacts of colleague diversity are contingent on departmental focus. Our research shows that specialization diversity, a type of job-related and deep-level difference, especially helps physicians who work in more specialization-diverse departments perform better when their departments are less focused. In contrast, we find that physicians in more gender-diverse departments perform even better when in more focused departments. Our results are robust to alternate explanations and biases arising from patient selection, population demographics, and endogeneity in diversity measures. Our study adds to a relatively small literature in operations management that considers how workgroup diversity (beyond diversity in on-the-job experience) might influence individual performance. Our research also contributes to the emerging conversation on why hiring managers should actively work toward improving workplace diversity.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Made Better by Others? When Having More Diverse Colleagues Improves Individual Outcomes","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/10591478241238973","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241238973","url":null,"abstract":"Research suggests that workgroup diversity influences various group and organizational-level outcomes. However, few studies consider its impact at the individual level, particularly in knowledge-related work, where workers have considerable discretion in making decisions. Our study aims to fill this gap by examining two significant types of workgroup diversity – gender diversity, a kind of bio-demographic diversity, and specialization diversity, a kind of job-related diversity – in a healthcare setting. Using detailed data on the entire patient population of Florida hospitals (10.14 million patients), including 25,187 physicians across 240 hospitals over a period of four years, we find that physicians who work in departments with more diverse colleagues (in terms of gender and specialization) have better patient outcomes, for example, a shorter stay, lower cost of treatment and increased likelihood of discharge to home. We find that the impacts of colleague diversity are contingent on departmental focus. Our research shows that specialization diversity, a type of job-related and deep-level difference, especially helps physicians who work in more specialization-diverse departments perform better when their departments are less focused. In contrast, we find that physicians in more gender-diverse departments perform even better when in more focused departments. Our results are robust to alternate explanations and biases arising from patient selection, population demographics, and endogeneity in diversity measures. Our study adds to a relatively small literature in operations management that considers how workgroup diversity (beyond diversity in on-the-job experience) might influence individual performance. Our research also contributes to the emerging conversation on why hiring managers should actively work toward improving workplace diversity.","PeriodicalId":20623,"journal":{"name":"Production and Operations Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140263105","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-05DOI: 10.1177/10591478241238984
K. Aral, L. V. Van Wassenhove
Entrepreneurial activity is widely seen as an important tool for addressing the racial wealth gap. However, the survival of minority-owned businesses depends on their ability to win contracts from buyer firms - which might be impacted by buyers’ racial biases. Whether discrimination can exist in sourcing and affect this ability is an unexplored question, perhaps due to an implicit assumption that business-to-business settings are immune from discriminatory biases. In this paper, we use controlled experiments to study whether racial discrimination can affect sourcing decisions. We find that when a supplier’s sales manager has a distinctively black name, buyers are 6.5% less likely (statistically significant at 1% level) to select that supplier compared to a supplier with a sales manager with a distinctively white name. Our findings suggest that equal-opportunity legislation similar to that already in place in the labor market may be needed in the sourcing context. Our findings have implications for executives, suggesting that supplier diversity programs and procurement-bias training can boost corporate performance by expanding the supplier pool, and simultaneously enhance a firm’s corporate social responsibility profile.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Racial Discrimination in Sourcing: Evidence from Controlled Experiments","authors":"K. Aral, L. V. Van Wassenhove","doi":"10.1177/10591478241238984","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241238984","url":null,"abstract":"Entrepreneurial activity is widely seen as an important tool for addressing the racial wealth gap. However, the survival of minority-owned businesses depends on their ability to win contracts from buyer firms - which might be impacted by buyers’ racial biases. Whether discrimination can exist in sourcing and affect this ability is an unexplored question, perhaps due to an implicit assumption that business-to-business settings are immune from discriminatory biases. In this paper, we use controlled experiments to study whether racial discrimination can affect sourcing decisions. We find that when a supplier’s sales manager has a distinctively black name, buyers are 6.5% less likely (statistically significant at 1% level) to select that supplier compared to a supplier with a sales manager with a distinctively white name. Our findings suggest that equal-opportunity legislation similar to that already in place in the labor market may be needed in the sourcing context. Our findings have implications for executives, suggesting that supplier diversity programs and procurement-bias training can boost corporate performance by expanding the supplier pool, and simultaneously enhance a firm’s corporate social responsibility profile.","PeriodicalId":20623,"journal":{"name":"Production and Operations Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140263858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Natural disasters and disease outbreaks cause substantial social turbulence and economic damage. The survival and continued operation of local small businesses and entrepreneurs are critical to the development activities in post-disaster recovery. However, these small businesses and entrepreneurs face greater challenges in accessing funding through traditional channels during a crisis. Crowdlending, also known as peer-to-peer microfinancing, has been successfully used to bypass traditional channels and raise funds directly from crowd lenders. However, it is unclear if such platforms can also be effectively used in the aftermath of crises, given that disasters induce both prosocial motivations and risk considerations in lender responses. To understand the operational implications of crowdlending for small businesses, we examine how crowdlenders respond to loan requests during a crisis and what factors moderate their responses. Drawing on the literature on disaster management and crowdlending, we hypothesize that lenders respond positively to loan requests from crisis-affected areas, and such responses are moderated by fundraising objectives and the lender's national culture. With observational data from an influential crowdlending platform and the 2014 Ebola outbreak as the treatment in a natural experiment design, we find that, on average, lenders respond positively to loan requests from crisis-affected areas, and they tend to favor loan requests emphasizing economic rather than social objectives. Furthermore, lenders from collectivistic cultures are more likely to respond positively during a crisis than lenders from individualistic ones. Our study contributes to research and practice in disaster management, particularly small business operations management during crises, by showing that crowdlending can be a useful fundraising channel for small businesses, which is meaningful for post-disaster economic development and recovery. We also offer implications for the recent conversation on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic by analyzing and discussing the similarities and differences between the Ebola outbreak and the COVID-19 pandemic.
{"title":"Crowdlending Behaviors in the Aftermath of a Crisis: Evidence From a Natural Experiment","authors":"Zhiyi Wang, Lusi Yang, Varun Karamshetty, Jungpil Hahn","doi":"10.1177/10591478231224931","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478231224931","url":null,"abstract":"Natural disasters and disease outbreaks cause substantial social turbulence and economic damage. The survival and continued operation of local small businesses and entrepreneurs are critical to the development activities in post-disaster recovery. However, these small businesses and entrepreneurs face greater challenges in accessing funding through traditional channels during a crisis. Crowdlending, also known as peer-to-peer microfinancing, has been successfully used to bypass traditional channels and raise funds directly from crowd lenders. However, it is unclear if such platforms can also be effectively used in the aftermath of crises, given that disasters induce both prosocial motivations and risk considerations in lender responses. To understand the operational implications of crowdlending for small businesses, we examine how crowdlenders respond to loan requests during a crisis and what factors moderate their responses. Drawing on the literature on disaster management and crowdlending, we hypothesize that lenders respond positively to loan requests from crisis-affected areas, and such responses are moderated by fundraising objectives and the lender's national culture. With observational data from an influential crowdlending platform and the 2014 Ebola outbreak as the treatment in a natural experiment design, we find that, on average, lenders respond positively to loan requests from crisis-affected areas, and they tend to favor loan requests emphasizing economic rather than social objectives. Furthermore, lenders from collectivistic cultures are more likely to respond positively during a crisis than lenders from individualistic ones. Our study contributes to research and practice in disaster management, particularly small business operations management during crises, by showing that crowdlending can be a useful fundraising channel for small businesses, which is meaningful for post-disaster economic development and recovery. We also offer implications for the recent conversation on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic by analyzing and discussing the similarities and differences between the Ebola outbreak and the COVID-19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":20623,"journal":{"name":"Production and Operations Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139962503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-15DOI: 10.1177/10591478241234170
Christopher S. Kwaramba, Susan Meyer Goldstein, Erica F. Cooper, Quinton J. Nottingham, Paul B. Lowry
This study explores the application of formal metaphorical transfer to construct theory regarding supply chain resilience, a topic of increased significance due to rising supply chain disruptions. We propose an ecological resilience perspective to illuminate the complex, dynamic nature of supply chain systems. Our research pivots around two questions: (1) Can the resilience of endotherms (warm-blooded animals) serve as a conceptually robust source phenomenon for metaphorical transfer to the study of supply chain resilience? (2) What theory-based principles can be derived from this metaphor to enhance our understanding of supply chain resilience? After rigorously establishing the conceptual equivalence between endotherm resilience and supply chain resilience, we identify a set of theory-based principles that provide insights into the evolving field of supply chain resilience. These principles help illuminate the adaptive and predictive dimensions of supply chain resilience. This paper contributes to theory building in operations management and supply chain management while suggesting new avenues for future research.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Supply Chain Resilience as Endotherm Resilience: Theorizing Through Metaphorical Transfer","authors":"Christopher S. Kwaramba, Susan Meyer Goldstein, Erica F. Cooper, Quinton J. Nottingham, Paul B. Lowry","doi":"10.1177/10591478241234170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241234170","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores the application of formal metaphorical transfer to construct theory regarding supply chain resilience, a topic of increased significance due to rising supply chain disruptions. We propose an ecological resilience perspective to illuminate the complex, dynamic nature of supply chain systems. Our research pivots around two questions: (1) Can the resilience of endotherms (warm-blooded animals) serve as a conceptually robust source phenomenon for metaphorical transfer to the study of supply chain resilience? (2) What theory-based principles can be derived from this metaphor to enhance our understanding of supply chain resilience? After rigorously establishing the conceptual equivalence between endotherm resilience and supply chain resilience, we identify a set of theory-based principles that provide insights into the evolving field of supply chain resilience. These principles help illuminate the adaptive and predictive dimensions of supply chain resilience. This paper contributes to theory building in operations management and supply chain management while suggesting new avenues for future research.","PeriodicalId":20623,"journal":{"name":"Production and Operations Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139962587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-15DOI: 10.1177/10591478241235585
Amir Karimi, Dwaipayan Roy
Access to contraceptives empowers women to not only exercise their reproductive rights and avert unintended pregnancies, but also to prevent a spectrum of adverse societal and health outcomes (e.g., unfulfilled career aspirations, unsafe abortions, maternal deaths.) However, in low-, and middle-income countries (LMICs), where resources are limited and women are under-represented as decision-makers in national governments, reproductive health has not traditionally been prioritized. Motivated by past research showing that female decision-makers tend to prioritize issues in ways that better reflect women’s needs and preferences, we examine the relationship between female decision-makers in national governments and contraceptive procurement. Specifically, we focus on female decision-makers at two levels, as health ministers and parliamentarians, and examine their impact on the procurement quantity of contraceptives by LMICs. Our empirical analysis, based on a comprehensive compilation of data across six distinct sources, shows that a female (vs. male) health minister is associated with an average 66% increase in the procurement quantity of contraceptives. Notably, this relationship is strengthened with an increase in the proportion of female representatives in national parliaments. Together, these findings demonstrate that female (vs. male) decision-makers exhibit greater commitment to contraceptive procurement, an issue that has a disproportionate impact on women’s health and well-being. As ensuring good health and well-being for all and increasing gender parity in leadership positions are two of the key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, our study on examining the relationship between female decision-makers and contraceptive procurement constitutes a timely and consequential line of inquiry.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Procurement for Empowerment: the Impact of Female Decision-Makers in Reproductive Health Supply Chains","authors":"Amir Karimi, Dwaipayan Roy","doi":"10.1177/10591478241235585","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241235585","url":null,"abstract":"Access to contraceptives empowers women to not only exercise their reproductive rights and avert unintended pregnancies, but also to prevent a spectrum of adverse societal and health outcomes (e.g., unfulfilled career aspirations, unsafe abortions, maternal deaths.) However, in low-, and middle-income countries (LMICs), where resources are limited and women are under-represented as decision-makers in national governments, reproductive health has not traditionally been prioritized. Motivated by past research showing that female decision-makers tend to prioritize issues in ways that better reflect women’s needs and preferences, we examine the relationship between female decision-makers in national governments and contraceptive procurement. Specifically, we focus on female decision-makers at two levels, as health ministers and parliamentarians, and examine their impact on the procurement quantity of contraceptives by LMICs. Our empirical analysis, based on a comprehensive compilation of data across six distinct sources, shows that a female (vs. male) health minister is associated with an average 66% increase in the procurement quantity of contraceptives. Notably, this relationship is strengthened with an increase in the proportion of female representatives in national parliaments. Together, these findings demonstrate that female (vs. male) decision-makers exhibit greater commitment to contraceptive procurement, an issue that has a disproportionate impact on women’s health and well-being. As ensuring good health and well-being for all and increasing gender parity in leadership positions are two of the key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, our study on examining the relationship between female decision-makers and contraceptive procurement constitutes a timely and consequential line of inquiry.","PeriodicalId":20623,"journal":{"name":"Production and Operations Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139963382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-14DOI: 10.1177/10591478241234993
Brooke A. Gazdag, Niels Van Quaquebeke, M. Besiou
In this essay, our analysis takes important insights on diversity and inclusion from the behavioral literature but critically contextualizes them against the reality of humanitarian operations. Humanitarian operations are characterized by system immanent diversity, particularly between local and expatriate aid workers, who not only bring valuable different perspectives to the table but also differ along multiple dimensions of diversity into a so-called diversity faultline. Such a faultline, however, provides fertile ground for continued conflict resulting in relational fractures and, ultimately, inefficient collaboration. While, in theory, inclusion could help overcome the negative effects of faultlines, in practice, the time pressure for humanitarian organizations to quickly respond to disasters makes it effectively impossible to engage in it. Against this background, we argue, humanitarian organizations should take preemptive action before disaster strikes. Specifically, we posit that the pre-disaster phase presents an opportunity to engage in inclusion in order to cultivate relational resilience between local and expatriate aid workers. Such resilience would enable them to not only better weather the inevitable relational fractures during a disaster response (and thus stay more functional throughout), but also quickly realign with each other in the post-disaster phase. We conclude with a set of concrete recommendations for practicing inclusion in the pre-disaster phase.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Diversity and Inclusion under Pressure: Building Relational Resilience into Humanitarian Operations","authors":"Brooke A. Gazdag, Niels Van Quaquebeke, M. Besiou","doi":"10.1177/10591478241234993","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241234993","url":null,"abstract":"In this essay, our analysis takes important insights on diversity and inclusion from the behavioral literature but critically contextualizes them against the reality of humanitarian operations. Humanitarian operations are characterized by system immanent diversity, particularly between local and expatriate aid workers, who not only bring valuable different perspectives to the table but also differ along multiple dimensions of diversity into a so-called diversity faultline. Such a faultline, however, provides fertile ground for continued conflict resulting in relational fractures and, ultimately, inefficient collaboration. While, in theory, inclusion could help overcome the negative effects of faultlines, in practice, the time pressure for humanitarian organizations to quickly respond to disasters makes it effectively impossible to engage in it. Against this background, we argue, humanitarian organizations should take preemptive action before disaster strikes. Specifically, we posit that the pre-disaster phase presents an opportunity to engage in inclusion in order to cultivate relational resilience between local and expatriate aid workers. Such resilience would enable them to not only better weather the inevitable relational fractures during a disaster response (and thus stay more functional throughout), but also quickly realign with each other in the post-disaster phase. We conclude with a set of concrete recommendations for practicing inclusion in the pre-disaster phase.","PeriodicalId":20623,"journal":{"name":"Production and Operations Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139777958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-14DOI: 10.1177/10591478241234996
M. Jalili, Michael S. Pangburn, Alireza Yazdani
Fashion sellers are sometimes critiqued for selling products with low durability, resulting in waste. Blame is also directed at consumers, who purchase new fashions despite having accumulated a closet full of prior fashions. The “slow fashion” movement encourages sellers to produce more durable products, thus supporting less frequent purchases by consumers. We analyze a seller facing a market of consumers who differ in their sensitivity to fashion, in a setting where fashion changes over time. Using an infinite-time model and considering strategic consumer behavior, including their ability to accumulate a “closet” of varieties over time, we analyze the seller’s profit-maximizing price and product- durability decisions. We initially assume a static price but later analyze the potential profit gains from dynamic pricing. When analyzing a heterogeneous consumer market, we initially allow customers to vary (distributed uniformly) in their sensitivity to fashion. Subsequently, we explore alternative distributions for consumers’ fashion sensitivity and the correlation between their fashion sensitivities and product valuations. Using this framework, we show how the seller’s optimal price and durability decisions yield distinct shopping segments, which we refer to as the minimalist versus trend-chasing behaviors. We find that if the degree of fashion uncertainty is moderate, the seller’s optimal choice of product durability will support the coexistence of both behaviors. As the variety uncertainty expands, if the seller’s costs are sufficiently low, it will support a throwaway culture via disposable products. Otherwise, given high costs, the seller optimally targets a slow fashion-type outcome, with consumers targeting reuse (with durability) rather than variety. Our findings shed light on consumers’ optimal purchasing behaviors in relation to both market parameters and the firm’s pricing and durability decisions, and we show these findings remain robust relative to modeling perturbations.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Trend-Chasing versus Minimalism: Selling Fewer, Better Products to Fashion-Sensitive Customers","authors":"M. Jalili, Michael S. Pangburn, Alireza Yazdani","doi":"10.1177/10591478241234996","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241234996","url":null,"abstract":"Fashion sellers are sometimes critiqued for selling products with low durability, resulting in waste. Blame is also directed at consumers, who purchase new fashions despite having accumulated a closet full of prior fashions. The “slow fashion” movement encourages sellers to produce more durable products, thus supporting less frequent purchases by consumers. We analyze a seller facing a market of consumers who differ in their sensitivity to fashion, in a setting where fashion changes over time. Using an infinite-time model and considering strategic consumer behavior, including their ability to accumulate a “closet” of varieties over time, we analyze the seller’s profit-maximizing price and product- durability decisions. We initially assume a static price but later analyze the potential profit gains from dynamic pricing. When analyzing a heterogeneous consumer market, we initially allow customers to vary (distributed uniformly) in their sensitivity to fashion. Subsequently, we explore alternative distributions for consumers’ fashion sensitivity and the correlation between their fashion sensitivities and product valuations. Using this framework, we show how the seller’s optimal price and durability decisions yield distinct shopping segments, which we refer to as the minimalist versus trend-chasing behaviors. We find that if the degree of fashion uncertainty is moderate, the seller’s optimal choice of product durability will support the coexistence of both behaviors. As the variety uncertainty expands, if the seller’s costs are sufficiently low, it will support a throwaway culture via disposable products. Otherwise, given high costs, the seller optimally targets a slow fashion-type outcome, with consumers targeting reuse (with durability) rather than variety. Our findings shed light on consumers’ optimal purchasing behaviors in relation to both market parameters and the firm’s pricing and durability decisions, and we show these findings remain robust relative to modeling perturbations.","PeriodicalId":20623,"journal":{"name":"Production and Operations Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139778231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-14DOI: 10.1177/10591478241234991
Lance W. Saunders, Jason R.W. Merrick, Chad W. Autry, Michael R. Galbreth, Randy V. Bradley
The relationship between product variety and sales has been extensively researched, but almost exclusively from the perspective of a new goods retail firm. Closed-loop supply chains for used goods, such as automobiles, offer unique challenges in terms of using reverse flows to create product variety at the retail location. Firms in used goods industries are unable to define their product mix a priori and may not even know which goods will be available to add to their sellable inventory. In this paper, we use data from a used automobile retailer to explore these issues. A better understanding of the relationship between variety and sales can help used automobile retailers improve how they define and structure product variety at retail locations. Improved management of used automobile sales has obvious financial implications, but it also has important environmental implications, given the large contribution of passenger vehicles to overall emissions. This study implements a cluster analysis using consumer-facing variables to understand how customers view product variety for used automobiles. Our results show that three distinct classes of inventory exist, primarily driven by a key characteristic -- body type -- which differs from the traditional definition of product variety for new vehicles in the existing literature. A two-way fixed effects regression is then used to understand the relationship between product variety at the firm's retail locations and sales. The results demonstrate a nonlinear relationship between product variety and sales and, intriguingly, suggest that increasing product variety in some classes can be used to drive sales in others. Our findings yield important contributions for managers in used automobile firms and extend the broader literature on closed-loop supply chains. Specifically, our research demonstrates important differences in how product variety should be managed with used goods relative to new goods by a firm seeking to maximize sales.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Managing Product Variety to Increase Sales in Used Automotive Closed-loop Supply Chains","authors":"Lance W. Saunders, Jason R.W. Merrick, Chad W. Autry, Michael R. Galbreth, Randy V. Bradley","doi":"10.1177/10591478241234991","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241234991","url":null,"abstract":"The relationship between product variety and sales has been extensively researched, but almost exclusively from the perspective of a new goods retail firm. Closed-loop supply chains for used goods, such as automobiles, offer unique challenges in terms of using reverse flows to create product variety at the retail location. Firms in used goods industries are unable to define their product mix a priori and may not even know which goods will be available to add to their sellable inventory. In this paper, we use data from a used automobile retailer to explore these issues. A better understanding of the relationship between variety and sales can help used automobile retailers improve how they define and structure product variety at retail locations. Improved management of used automobile sales has obvious financial implications, but it also has important environmental implications, given the large contribution of passenger vehicles to overall emissions. This study implements a cluster analysis using consumer-facing variables to understand how customers view product variety for used automobiles. Our results show that three distinct classes of inventory exist, primarily driven by a key characteristic -- body type -- which differs from the traditional definition of product variety for new vehicles in the existing literature. A two-way fixed effects regression is then used to understand the relationship between product variety at the firm's retail locations and sales. The results demonstrate a nonlinear relationship between product variety and sales and, intriguingly, suggest that increasing product variety in some classes can be used to drive sales in others. Our findings yield important contributions for managers in used automobile firms and extend the broader literature on closed-loop supply chains. Specifically, our research demonstrates important differences in how product variety should be managed with used goods relative to new goods by a firm seeking to maximize sales.","PeriodicalId":20623,"journal":{"name":"Production and Operations Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139777603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-14DOI: 10.1177/10591478241234998
Heng Xu, Nan Zhang
A key challenge facing the use of Machine Learning (ML) in organizational selection settings (e.g., the processing of loan or job applications) is the potential bias against (racial and gender) minorities. To address this challenge, a rich literature of Fairness-Aware ML (FAML) algorithms has emerged, attempting to ameliorate biases while maintaining the predictive accuracy of ML algorithms. Almost all existing FAML algorithms define their optimization goals according to a selection task, meaning that ML outputs are assumed to be the final selection outcome. In practice, though, ML outputs are rarely used as-is. In personnel selection, for example, ML often serves a support role to human resource managers, allowing them to more easily exclude unqualified applicants. This effectively assigns to ML a screening rather than selection task. it might be tempting to treat selection and screening as two variations of the same task that differ only quantitatively on the admission rate. This paper, however, reveals a qualitative difference between the two in terms of fairness. Specifically, we demonstrate through conceptual development and mathematical analysis that mis-categorizing a screening task as a selection one could not only degrade final selection quality but result in fairness problems such as selection biases within the minority group. After validating our findings with experimental studies on simulated and real-world data, we discuss several business and policy implications, highlighting the need for firms and policymakers to properly categorize the task assigned to ML in assessing and correcting algorithmic biases.
机器学习（ML）在组织选拔环境（如处理贷款或工作申请）中的使用所面临的一个关键挑战是，对（种族和性别）少数群体的潜在偏见。为了应对这一挑战，出现了丰富的公平感知 ML（FAML）算法文献，试图在保持 ML 算法预测准确性的同时改善偏差。几乎所有现有的 FAML 算法都是根据选择任务确定优化目标的，这意味着 ML 输出被假定为最终选择结果。但在实践中，ML 输出很少被原封不动地使用。例如，在人事选拔中，ML 通常为人力资源经理提供支持，使他们能够更轻松地排除不合格的申请人。这实际上赋予了 ML 筛选而非选拔的任务。将选拔和筛选视为同一任务的两种变体，仅在录取率上存在数量上的差异，这可能很有诱惑力。然而，本文揭示了两者在公平性方面的质的区别。具体来说，我们通过概念发展和数学分析证明，将筛选任务错误地归类为选拔任务，不仅会降低最终的选拔质量，还会导致公平性问题，如少数群体内部的选拔偏差。在通过对模拟数据和真实数据的实验研究验证了我们的发现后，我们讨论了若干商业和政策影响，强调企业和政策制定者在评估和纠正算法偏差时，需要对分配给 ML 的任务进行正确分类。
{"title":"EXPRESS: Goal Orientation for Fair Machine Learning Algorithms","authors":"Heng Xu, Nan Zhang","doi":"10.1177/10591478241234998","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241234998","url":null,"abstract":"A key challenge facing the use of Machine Learning (ML) in organizational selection settings (e.g., the processing of loan or job applications) is the potential bias against (racial and gender) minorities. To address this challenge, a rich literature of Fairness-Aware ML (FAML) algorithms has emerged, attempting to ameliorate biases while maintaining the predictive accuracy of ML algorithms. Almost all existing FAML algorithms define their optimization goals according to a selection task, meaning that ML outputs are assumed to be the final selection outcome. In practice, though, ML outputs are rarely used as-is. In personnel selection, for example, ML often serves a support role to human resource managers, allowing them to more easily exclude unqualified applicants. This effectively assigns to ML a screening rather than selection task. it might be tempting to treat selection and screening as two variations of the same task that differ only quantitatively on the admission rate. This paper, however, reveals a qualitative difference between the two in terms of fairness. Specifically, we demonstrate through conceptual development and mathematical analysis that mis-categorizing a screening task as a selection one could not only degrade final selection quality but result in fairness problems such as selection biases within the minority group. After validating our findings with experimental studies on simulated and real-world data, we discuss several business and policy implications, highlighting the need for firms and policymakers to properly categorize the task assigned to ML in assessing and correcting algorithmic biases.","PeriodicalId":20623,"journal":{"name":"Production and Operations Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139836765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：