4,158 research outputs found

    Incentive Design for Operations-Marketing Multitasking

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    A firm hires an agent (e.g., store manager) to undertake both operational and marketing tasks. Marketing tasks boost demand, but for demand to translate into sales, operational effort is required to maintain adequate inventory. The firm designs a compensation plan to induce the agent to put effort into both marketing and operations while facing “demand censoring” (i.e., demand in excess of available inventory is unobservable). We formulate this incentive-design problem in a principal-agent framework with a multitasking agent subject to a censored signal. We develop a bang-bang optimal control approach, with a general optimality structure applicable to a broad class of incentive-design problems. Using this approach, we characterize the optimal compensation plan, with a bonus region resembling a “mast” and “sail,” such that a bonus is paid when either all inventory above a threshold is sold or the sales quantity meets an inventory-dependent target. The optimal “mast and sail” compensation plan implies non-monotonicity, where the agent can be less likely to receive a bonus for achieving a better outcome. This gives rise to an ex post moral hazard issue where the agent may “hide” inventory to earn a bonus. We show this ex post moral hazard issue is a result of demand censoring. If available information includes a waitlist (or other noisy signals) to gauge unsatisfied demand, no ex post moral hazard issues remain

    The influence of banks on auditor choice and auditor reporting in Japan

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    Debt as opposed to equity as the major source of financing and the influence of banks on the corporate governance of listed companies are unique features of the Japanese business environment. This thesis investigates how these features affect the choice of auditor by Japanese listed companies and auditor reporting by Japanese CPA firms on those companies. Pong and Kita (2006) provided some univariate analyses and indicated that Japanese companies tended to select the same external auditors as their main banks to reduce the agency costs. In this thesis, I further examine the influence of main banks on auditor selection by logistic regression and also investigate the influence of main banks on auditor reporting quality after controlling self-selection bias. Using data from Japanese listed companies in the Tokyo Stock Exchange over the 2002-2008 period, I provide empirical evidence that companies with more reliance on main bank loans are more likely to choose their main banks’ external auditors. Using the Propensity Score Matching method and the Heckman two-step binary probit model to control for self-selection bias, the empirical results support the hypothesis that main bank auditors are more likely to issue modified opinions to the borrowing companies than non-main bank auditors, providing evidence of higher audit quality from main bank auditors. As a sensitivity test, I also use discretionary accruals as a measure of audit quality. the results indicate that companies who choose the same auditors as their main banks have higher audit quality than companies who choose different auditors from their main banks. My thesis contributes to the existing auditing literature in several ways. First, by studying the influence of debt financing on auditor choice and auditor reporting, this thesis extends the auditor market research that focuses mainly on the role of auditors in equity markets to the bank-based market. Furthermore, this thesis also complements auditing research on the influence of institutions on audit quality

    Making the Newsvendor Smart – Order Quantity Optimization with ANNs for a Bakery Chain

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    Accurate demand forecasting is particularly crucial for products with short shelf life like bakery products. Over- and underestimation of customer demand affects not only profit margins of bakeries but is also responsible for 600,000 metric tons of food waste every year in Germany. To solve this problem, we develop an IT artifact based on artificial neural networks, which is automating the manual order process and capable of reducing costs as well as food waste. To test and evaluate our artifact, we cooperated with an SME bakery chain from Germany. The bakery chain runs 40 points of sale (POS) in southern Germany. After algorithm based reconstructing and cleaning of the censored sales data, we compare two different data-driven newsvendor approaches for this inventory problem. We show that both models are able to significantly improve the forecast quality (cost savings up to 30%) compared to human planners

    Analyzing Compensation Methods in Manufacturing: Piece Rates, Time Rates, or Gain-Sharing?

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    Economists have often argued that "pay for performance" is the optimal compensation scheme. However, use of the simplest form of pay for performance, the piece rate, has been in decline in manufacturing in recent decades. We show both theoretically and empirically that these changes are due to adoption of "modern manufacturing" in which firms produce a greater variety of products to a more demanding quality and delivery standard. We further develop a theory of the type of compensation system appropriate for this kind of production, in which there is a high return to “multi-tasking”, where the same workers perform both easy-to-observe and hard-to-observe tasks and to “just-in-time” production, which entails a high cost of holding inventory. We test these predictions using detailed monthly information on firm outcomes and employee surveys from four plants in two companies that adopted modern manufacturing methods and changed their method of compensation from piece rates to either time rates or value-added gain-sharing. We find that time rates and gain-sharing are associated with reduced employee performance on easy-to-observe tasks, enhanced performance on hard-to-observe tasks, and improved firm profitability. Our analysis shows the importance of distinguishing types of incentive pay: we find that modern manufacturing is consistent with either group incentive pay (such as gain-sharing), or no incentives (such as hourly pay), but inconsistent with individual incentive pay (piece rates).

    The Effect of Labor on Profitability: The Role of Quality

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    Determining staffing levels is an important decision in retail operations. While the costs of increasing labor are obvious and easy to measure, the benefits are often indirect and not immediately felt. One benefit of increased labor is improved quality. The objective of this paper is to examine the effect of labor on profitability through its impact on quality. I examine both conformance quality and service quality. Using longitudinal data from stores of a large retailer, I find that increasing the amount of labor at a store is associated with an increase in profitability through its impact on conformance quality but not its impact on service quality. While increasing labor is associated with an increase in service quality, in this setting there is no significant relationship between service quality and profitability. My findings highlight the importance of attending to process discipline in certain service settings. They also show that too much corporate emphasis on payroll management may motivate managers to operate with insufficient labor levels, which, in turn, degrades profitability.Labor Capacity Management, Quality, Retail Operations

    Competition in Price and Availability when Availability is Unobservable

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    This paper presents a strategic model of competition in both price and availability when firms can publicly commit to prices but not inventories (or capacities). Demand is uncertain and firms stock out in equilibrium. Consumers choose where to shop on the basis of price and expected service rate (the probability of being served). In a one period model, I show that although firms cannot affect consumers' expectations of their service rates by increasing inventory, they can signal higher service rates with higher prices (regardless of whether price or inventory is chosen first). This extra incentive to raise price generates a floor on equilibrium prices and industry profits that exists regardless of the number of firms. When price is set before output, high prices create incentives for firm to hold more inventory. So rational consumers anticipate high priced firms will have higher service rates. Applications of this model to video rental competition and other retail competition are discussed. When output is set before price, high prices act as a signal of high availability. This equilibrium is the unique equilibrium satisfying the never-a-weak-best-response property. Rational consumers anticipate high priced firms will have higher service rates and that firms that deviate to low prices must have changed their availability as well. In a repeated game firms that maintain reputations for higher service rates may earn even higher profits.

    Accounting for deficit in ABC-XYZ analysis

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    This work proposes an ABC-XYZ-type analysis modified with observed merchandise deficit. The deficit is determined by right censoring. This manuscript proposes to account for right censoring in the ABC-XYZ analysis. The modified ABC-XYZ analysis updates many important quantities including projected income, the coefficient of variation, and the Kaplan-Meier estimator. An illustrative example shows that the classical ABC-XYZ algorithm underestimates a merchandise value when deficit was observed; magnitude of the coefficient of variation is also underestimated. The new method corrects this bias and recalculates overall profit and the coefficient of variation

    Three paths to brand growth: new product introduction, digital advertising, and crowdfunding

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    This thesis uses empirical techniques of dynamic modelling to examine three major means for brands to achieve sustainable growth, including new product introduction (NPI), digital advertising, and value co-creation with consumers through digital crowdfunding. Essay 1 (Chapter 2) explores the impact of NPI on the performance volatility of the innovating and the competing brands in the CPG industry. Using a GARCH-in-VAR modelling approach, we find that NPI causes a long-term rise in sales volatility of all brands. Such volatility increase is especially significant for new brand entries, premium-priced and more innovative brands, and retailers with a larger assortment and those where private labels dominate. More importantly, NPI's impact through sales volatility on the sales level of brands is consistently positive. Findings from Essay 1 challenge marketers' conventional wisdom to curb volatility and instead highlight brands' potential to benefit from the market turbulence following an NPI. Essay 2 (Chapter 3) investigates the effect of processing disfluency on consumers' decisions to click on digital display advertisements. With consumers flooded by digital ads, it is imperative for marketers to strike a balance between capturing consumer attention and keeping them unannoyed. A series of lab experiments combined with field data modelling using the Dynamic Factor Model indicate that processing disfluency can elicit consumer interest and desire to explore, leading to a higher willingness to click. Such disfluency does not cause consumer ad annoyance and can be induced by negative ad emotional appeals such as fear and sorrow. Essay 3 (Chapter 4) studies investment dynamics between digital crowdfunding investors, who are also the future consumers of the fundraising venture. Recognizing the co-existence between more and less informed investors, our results show that large investments by informed investors are effective signals that positively influence subsequent investors' behaviours. Such an effect is strengthened by a higher level of social similarity between investors and the size of the deal. Our findings shed light on the asymmetric information flows from more to less informed investors, and the complementarity between different types of investors.Open Acces

    Field Experiments with Firms

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    We discuss how the use of field experiments sheds light on long standing research questions relating to firm behavior. We present insights from two classes of experiments: within and across firms, and draw common lessons from both sets. Field experiments within firms generally aim to shed light on the nature of agency problems. Along these lines, we discuss how field experiments have provided new insights on shirking behavior, and the provision of monetary and non-monetary incentives. Field experiments across firms generally aim to uncover firms' binding constraints by exogenously varying the availability of key inputs such as labor, physical capital, and managerial capital. We conclude by discussing some of the practical issues researchers face when designing experiments and by highlighting areas for further research.field experiments, firms, organizations
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