2016 INFORMS Annual Meeting Program

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INFORMS Nashville – 2016
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SA48
2 - Optimal Dynamic Product Development And Launch For A
Network Of Customers
Nur Sunar, UNC,
John Birge, Sinit Vitavasiri
We consider a firm that dynamically chooses its effort to develop a product for a
network of customers represented by a general connected graph. In addition to
dynamically choosing its development effort, the firm chooses when to launch or
abandon the product. If the firm launches the product, the firm also chooses a
selling price, a promotional price and a target customer to offer promotion. Once
the target customer adopts the product, the product dynamically diffuses over the
customer network based on the topology of the graph and the selling price. In a
continuous-time setting, we explicitly solve the firm’s jointly-optimal
development, launch and post-launch strategies for any connected network.
3 - Quantity Pre-commitment And Cournot Equivalence
Amr Farahat, Washington University-St. Louis, Campus Box 1133,
1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, 63130, United States,
, Woonghee Tim Huh, Hongmin Li
We study a two-stage oligopolistic competition game, called the Quantity Pre-
Commitment game, in which firms compete on quantity in the first stage and
then compete on price in the second stage. This game is compared to a single-
stage Cournot game, in which firms compete on the quantity only and the prices
are set to clear the market. We show an equivalence result that an equilibrium of
the Quantity Pre-Commitment game coincides with an equilibrium of the
Cournot game, under certain conditions. The conditions that we identify are more
general than those of specific models used in the seminal papers in the literature.
4 - A Stochastic Model For Pricing In Reverse Supply Chains
Elif Akcali, University of Florida, Dept of Industrial and Systems
Engineering, 303 Weil Hall PO Box 116595, Gainesville, FL,
32611-6595, United States, , Sila Cetinkaya,
Yi Zhang
We address channel coordination issues in a two-echelon reverse supply chain
that consists of a collector and a manufacturer. We develop stochastic models to
maximize the manufacturer’s and collector’s profits in a game-theoretic
framework. We develop an effective mechanism to coordinate manufacturer’s and
collector’s decisions.
SA47
209C-MCC
Topics in Assortment Planning and Consumer Choice
Sponsored: Revenue Management & Pricing
Sponsored Session
Chair: Kris Johnson Ferreira, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA,
United States,
1 - A Data-driven Approach To Customer Segmentation
Ashwin Venkataraman, New York University, 719 Broadway, 7th
Floor, New York, NY, 10003, United States,
Srikanth Jagabathula, Lakshminarayanan Subramanian
We propose a new “model-based” projection technique for segmenting customers
based on partial observations for each customer. We suppose that data are
available in the form of categorial responses for on a collection of n variables for
each customer. This unified representation allows one to combine diverse signals
(clicks, demographics, purchases, etc.) to obtain accurate segmentation. Our
method relies on a combination of model-based projections and matrix
completion techniques to obtain the clusters. We theoretically and empirically
show how our method is superior to existing benchmarks.
2 - Analysis Of Choice Models: A Welfare-based Framework
Xiaobo Li, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55414,
United States, , Guiyun Feng, Zizhuo Wang
We propose a framework for discrete choice models through a welfare function.
The framework provides a new way of constructing choice models. It also
provides great analysis convenience for establishing connections among existing
choice models. We define a new property in choice models:
substitutability/complementarity and study conditions for a choice model to be
substitutable. We show that our framework is flexible in this property, which is
desirable in capturing practical choice patterns.
3 - A Dynamic Clustering Approach To Data-driven Assortment
Personalization
Fernando Bernstein, Duke University,
Sajad Modaresi, Denis R. Saure
A retailer faces heterogeneous customers with initially unknown preferences. The
retailer can personalize assortment offerings based on available profile
information; however, users with different profiles may have similar preferences,
suggesting that the retailer can benefit from pooling information among
customers with similar preferences. We propose a dynamic clustering approach
that adaptively adjusts customer segments and personalizes the assortment
offerings to maximize cumulative profit.
4 - Assortment Rotation And The Value Of Concealment
Kris Johnson Ferreira, Harvard Business School,
Joel Goh
The frequency at which retailers change their assortment varies widely across
fashion retailers. Some retailers choose to sell products simultaneously
throughout the season, whereas others choose to sell products sequentially,
requiring that the consumer make a purchase decision before seeing the
subsequent products for sale. By offering products sequentially, retailers can
introduce uncertainty in consumer choice that affects purchase decisions. We
develop a consumer choice model and finite-horizon stochastic dynamic program
to study when this uncertainty is advantageous for a retailer: a phenomenon we
refer to as the retailer’s value of concealment.
SA48
210-MCC
Social Media Analysis I
Invited: Social Media Analytics
Invited Session
Chair: Chris Smith, Air Force Institute of Technology, 2950 Hobson
Way, 2950 Hobson Way, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, 45433,
United States,
1 - User Reward Programs In Online Social Media
Fouad H Mirzaei, Santa Clara University, Unit 3, 559 Alviso St,
Santa Clara, CA, 95050, United States,
Fredrik Odegaard, Xinghao Yan
Online social media (OSMs) have become a popular and growing Internet
phenomenon, as exemplified by the millions of followers of websites like
YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Given the Internet’s ease of access and the high
degree of competition to attract users to these sites, a question arises as to
whether OSMs should develop revenue-sharing programs as a way to reward
their contributing users. We present an ex ante asymmetric duopoly OSM game,
where heterogeneous users are either active or passive with respect to each OSM.
In this study, we explore how online users’ actions and perspectives impact the
outcome of the competition among OSMs.
2 - Research On The Influence Of Microblog Advertising Of Theatre
Chain On Its First Week Box Office Revenue
Jiayin Qi, Shanghai University of International Business and
Economics, Shanghai, 100876, China, , Jiaqi Liu
With the participation of enterprise in social network, a question arises of how
enterprise can gain more real profit from social network advertising. This article
analyzes the relationships among contents of enterprise’s online post, consumer’s
participation on microblog, and short-term product sales. Taking movie market as
research set, this research finds that short-term product sales is positively
influenced by the information quantity of enterprise’s post, and the influence is
mediated by the “repost” of other users of Sina microblog. The mechanism
examined in this research on the influence of microblog advertising on short-term
sales can be guidelines of social network advertising.
3 - Social Media Use And New Product Development Performance
Debasish N Mallick, Associate Professor, University of St. Thomas,
Opus College of Business, 1000 La Salle Avenue # TMH 443,
Minneapolis, MN, 55403, United States,
Use of social media is becoming increasingly popular in new product development
(NPD). Yet, the performance impact of social media use in NPD remains
inconclusive. Using a cross industry survey of new product development projects,
we explore the factors affecting the relationship between social media use and
NPD performance.