Digitization in B2B Buying and Selling

Business-to-business transactions include several processes that can be digitized by buyers and suppliers. While prior studies have examined the performance impacts of using digital technologies, they have not investigated the alignment of such digitization between transacting parties. In this paper, we empirically examine the use of different market-based digital technologies by buyers and suppliers for these processes, and analyze the extent to which the digitization of different processes is aligned between transacting buyers and suppliers. Our field study is based on surveys of transacting agents in 174 buyer-supplier dyads about their use of digital technologies. The results indicate that there are misalignments for some processes in both the specific digital technologies buyers and suppliers use, and in the extent to which each of them uses digital technologies. By addressing these misalignments, buyers and suppliers could potentially realize greater benefits from digitized transaction processes

Fortune Favours the Bold: An Agent-Based Model Reveals Adaptive Advantages of Overconfidence in War

Overconfidence has long been considered a cause of war. Like other decision-making biases, overconfidence seems detrimental because it increases the frequency and costs of fighting. However, evolutionary biologists have proposed that overconfidence may also confer adaptive advantages: increasing ambition, resolve, persistence, bluffing opponents, and winning net payoffs from risky opportunities despite occasional failures. We report the results of an agent-based model of inter-state conflict, which allows us to evaluate the performance of different strategies in competition with each other. Counter-intuitively, we find that overconfident states predominate in the population at the expense of unbiased or underconfident states. Overconfident states win because: (1) they are more likely to accumulate resources from frequent attempts at conquest; (2) they are more likely to gang up on weak states, forcing victims to split their defences; and (3) when the decision threshold for attacking requires an overwhelming asymmetry of power, unbiased and underconfident states shirk many conflicts they are actually likely to win. These “adaptive advantages” of overconfidence may, via selection effects, learning, or evolved psychology, have spread and become entrenched among modern states, organizations and decision-makers. This would help to explain the frequent association of overconfidence and war, even if it no longer brings benefits today

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Essays on the use of digital technologies in open market business-to-business transactions

Business-to-business (B2B) transactions either occur within an established relationship between two supply chain partners or in an open market setting, in which a firm considers multiple candidate transaction counterparties before closing a deal with a chosen firm. Firms can use Web-based digital technologies in support of both kinds of transactions. While there is a lot of guidance for firms digitalizing transactions with their supply chain partners, particularly using Electronic Data Interchange systems, the digitalization of open market transactions through digital technologies such as e-commerce websites and social media, has received far less attention from researchers. Given that over a quarter of firms’ B2B transactions in most industries are open market transactions and that the digitalization of these transactions comes at a cost, effective prioritization of the use of digital technologies in open market B2B transactions is non-trivial for firms. Toward that end, this dissertation examines how firms can effectively digitalize their open market B2B transactions, in three separate essays. The first essay investigates how the use of digital technologies to support various processes in open market B2B transactions is related to performance outcomes for buyer and seller firms. An analysis of survey data on 185 digitalized open market B2B transactions shows that the digitalization of information discovery processes is positively associated with sales performance for sellers, while the digitalization of transaction completion processes is positively associated with procurement performance for buyers. The second essay examines the fit between the digital technologies that firms use and the open market transaction processes they support. An analysis of survey data from 332 firms reveals notable discrepancies between fit and use, such as the frequent use of e-mail and websites for all transaction processes regardless of their fit with a particular transaction process, and the limited use of mobile applications, even for processes for which there is a fit. The third essay examines how the choices that buyers and sellers make in terms of which processes to digitalize, which technologies to use, and to what extent to use these technologies, impact the performance benefits they realize from their open market B2B transaction digitalization efforts. An analysis of 306 firms across 153 buyer-seller dyads shows that the realization of performance benefits from the digitalization of an open market B2B transaction is contingent on the extent of commonality in the choice of digital technologies by the transacting firms. Collectively, the three essays of this dissertation provide valuable insights for researchers and practitioners on how to effectively use digital technologies in open market B2B transactions

How should firms prioritize their transaction digitalization efforts: insights from research on buyer-supplier dyads

When digitalizing business-to-business transactions, firms need to decide what to digitalize (i.e., which stages of the transactions) as well as how (i.e., using which technologies). Digitalization of transactions between established partners has received a lot of attention, particularly with the use of ERP software and EDI systems. However, there is relatively little research on the digitalization of transactions in a market setting, although they occur frequently. Based on an empirical analysis of transactions involving buyers and suppliers from varying industries, this study provides guidance to firms to better realize the benefits of their transaction digitalization efforts

An Empirical Study of Open-Market B2B Transaction Digitalization

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