Informs 2015

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INFORMS Philadelphia – 2015
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WD44
44-Room 103B, CC
Revenue Management and Pricing in Social Networks
Sponsor: Revenue Management and Pricing
Sponsored Session
Chair: Amir Ajorlou, Postodctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, E32-D569, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA, 02139,
United States of America,
1 - Ergodic Social Learning
Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi, Columbia Business School, 3022
Broadway, Uris Hall 418, New York, NY, 10023, United States of
America, , Ali Jadbabaie, Pooya Molavi
This paper examines how the structure of a social network and the quality of
information available to different agents determine the speed of social learning. In
a variant of the DeGroot learning model, we show that the rate of learning has a
simple analytical characterization in terms of the relative entropy of agents’ signal
structures and their eigenvector centralities.
2 - Cournot Competition in Networked Markets
Shayan Ehsani, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford,
CA, 94305, United States of America,
Kostas Bimpikis
The paper considers competition among firms that produce a homogeneous good
in a networked environment. A bipartite graph determines which subset of
markets a firm can supply to. We characterize equilibrium supply quantities,
prices, and profits, and provide several insights regarding entering a new market
or two firms merging.
3 - Maximizing Stochastic Monotone Submodular Functions
Arash Asadpour, Assistant Professor, New York University, 44
West 4th Street, Suite 8-60, New York, NY, 10012, United States
of America, Hamid Nazerzadeh
We study the problem of maximizing a stochastic monotone submodular function
with respect to a matroid constraint. We show that the adaptivity gap ó the ratio
between the values of optimal adaptive and optimal non-adaptive policies ó is
bounded and is equal to e/(e-1). We propose a polynomial-time non-adaptive
policy that achieves this bound. We also present an adaptive myopic policy that
obtains at least half of the optimal value.
4 - Dynamic Pricing in Social Networks: The Word of Mouth Effect
Amir Ajorlou, Postodctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, E32-D569, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA, 02139,
United States of America, , Ali Jadbabaie,
Ali Kakhbod
We study the problem of optimal dynamic pricing for a monopolist selling a
product to consumers in a social network. The only means of spread of
information about the product is via Word of Mouth communication. We show
that, in line with the real world evidence from smartphone applications, the
optimal dynamic pricing policy for durable products drops the price to zero
infinitely often, giving away the immediate profit in full to expand the informed
network in order to exploit it in future.
WD45
45-Room 103C, CC
Sustainability III
Contributed Session
Chair: Rajab Khalilpour, Dr, University of Sydney,
School of Chemical and Biomolecular Eng, Sydney 2006, Australia,
1 - Understanding Spatio-temporal Diffusion of New Durable
Products: The Toyota Prius Hybrid Vehicle
David Keith, Assistant Professor, MIT Sloan School of
Management, 100 Main St, Room E62-441, Cambridge, MA,
02138, United States of America, ,
Jeroen Struben, John D. Sterman
We propose an analytical framework in which spatio-temporal diffusion is
explained by social influence between adopters and potential adopters at different
geographic scales, for which data are more readily observable. We analyze Prius
sales in 4 US cities selected to capture variation in conduciveness and observed
adoption. We find that variation in Prius adoption is primarily explained by social
contagion within each ZIP code, amplifying underlying market heterogeneities.
2 - Sustainability Consciousness in Engineering Education
Qiong Wang, National University of Singapore, #12-207C,
North Tower, University Town, Singapore, 138601, Singapore,
University sustainability education programs in several European countries and
the US have been compared to find common characteristics of the curricula in
environmental science and engineering programs. This study investigates
differences in the world’s top universities for engineering and technology with the
QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education World University
Rankings by Faculty in the academic year 2014-15.
3 - Sustainability Trends in Service Sectors: A Text Mining Approach
Youqin Pan, Assustant Professor, Salem State University,
352 Lafayette Street, Salem, MA, 01970, United States of
America, , Xiaocun Sun
In this paper, sustainability reports of major companies in the service sectors are
obtained and used. To extract useful information or uncover hidden patterns from
these reports, text mining is applied. The higher the frequency of a certain term,
the greater is the emphasis that companies place on them and hence the more
important they are to the companies.
4 - Financial Sustainability of Operator Assisted E-government
Kiosks in Emerging Economies
Rajesh Sharma, Research Scholar, Indian Institute of
Management, Prabandh Shikhar, Rau, Indore, MP, 453556, India,
Rajhans Mishra
The paper addresses the issue of finacial sustainability of operator assisted kiosks
which are deployed in emerging economies to overcome the handicap of low
education, PC penetration and lack of Internet connectivity.
5 - Feasibility Study of Grid Defection with PV and Battery
Rajab Khalilpour, Dr, University of Sydney, School of Chemical
and Biomolecular Engi, University of Sydney, University of
Sydney, 2006, Australia,
Anthony Vassallo
We have developed a mixed-integer decision support tool for rigorous assessment
of the feasibility of leaving the grid. Numerous sensitivity analyses are carried out
over critical parameters such as technology costs, system size, load, and feed-in-
tariff. The results show that leaving-the-grid is not the best economic option and
it might be more beneficial to keep the connection with the grid, but minimize
the electricity purchase by installation of an optimal size of a PV-battery system.
WD46
46-Room 104A, CC
Empirical Research in Service Operations
Sponsor: Manufacturing & Service Oper Mgmt/Service Operations
Sponsored Session
Chair: Ryan Buell, Harvard Business School, Morgan Hall 429, Boston,
MA, 02163, United States of America,
1 - Strategically Giving Service: Information Visibility and Driver
Behavior in Ehailing Services
Antonio Moreno-Garcia, Northwestern University,
2001 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, Il, 60208, United States of America,
Can Ozkan
Using data from a leading eHailing platform, we study how drivers react to the
existence of detailed information about the location of their competitors, and we
analyze how this phenomenon affects operational efficiency.
2 - Increasing Sales by Managing Congestion in Self-service
Environments: Evidence from A Field Experime
Saravanan Kesavan, Associate Professor, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Kenan-Flagler Business School,
Chapel Hill, NC, 27514, United States of America,
, Hyun Seok Lee,
Vinayak Deshpande
We examine the impact of congestion in fitting-room on store performance. We
demonstrate an inverted-U relationship between fitting-room traffic and sales. We
find that co-production is more effective: increasing fitting-room labor by one
person through field experiment increases sales per hour by 15.77%. Our
solution was adopted with around 100 stores. Finally, we tease out two
mechanisms of congestion effect by closely observing other retail store: 1) Waiting
time and 2) Phantom stock-out.
WD46