/pdf/the-theory-of-industrial-organization-19bejph0ej.pdf

The Theory of Industrial Organization

The Social Psychology of Groups. J. W Thibaut & H. H. Kelley. New York: alley, 1959. The team of Thibaut and Kelley goes back to 1946 when, after serving in different units of the armed services psychology program, the authors joined the Research Center for Group Dynamics, first at M.LT and then at the University of Michigan. Their continued association eventuated in appointments as fellows at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 19561957. It is during these years that their collaboration resulted in the publication of The Social Psychology of Groups. The book was designed to "bring order and coherence to present-day research in interpersonal relations and group functioning." To accomplish this aim, the authors introduced, defined, and illustrated basic concepts in an effort to explain the simplest of social phenomena, the two-person relationship. These basic principles and concepts were then employed to illuminate larger problems and more complex social relationships and to examine the significance of such concepts as roles, norm, power, group cohesiveness, and status. The lasting legacy of this book is derived from the fact that the concepts and principles discussed therein serve as a foundation for one of the dominant conceptual frameworks in the field of family studies today-the social exchange framework. Specifically, much of our contemporary thinking about the process of interpersonal attraction and about how individuals evaluate their close relationships has been influenced by the theory and concepts introduced in The Social Psychology of Groups. Today, as a result of Thibaut and Kelley, we think of interpersonal attraction as resulting from the unique valence of driving and restraining forces, rewards and costs, subjectively thought to be available from a specific relationship and its competing alternatives. We understand, as well, that relationships are evaluated through complex and subjectively based comparative processes. As a result, when we think about assessing the degree to which individuals are satisfied with their relationships, we take into consideration the fact that individuals differ in terms of the importance they attribute to different aspects of a relationship (e.g., financial security, sexual fulfillment, companionship). We also take into consideration the fact that individuals differ in terms of the levels of rewards and costs that they believe are realistically obtainable and deserved from a relationship. In addition, as a result of Thibaut and Kelley's theoretical focus on the concept of dependence and the interrelationship between attraction and dependence, there has evolved within the field of family studies a deeper appreciation for the complexities and variability found within relationships. Individuals are dependent on their relationships, according to Thibaut and Kelley, when the outcomes derived from the existing relationship exceed those perceived to be available in competing alternatives. Individuals who are highly dependent on their relationships are less likely to act to end their relationships. This dependence and the stability it engenders may or may not be voluntary, depending on the degree to which individuals are attracted to and satisfied with their relationships. When individuals are both attracted to and dependent on their relationships, they can be thought of as voluntarily participating in their relationship. That is, they are likely to commit themselves to the partner and relationship and actively work for its continuance. Thibaut and Kelley termed those relationships characterized by low levels of satisfaction and high levels of dependence "nonvoluntary relationships. …

The Social Psychology of Groups

In this article, I present a review and tutorial of the literature on closed-loop supply chains, which are supply chains where, in addition to typical forward flows, there are reverse flows of used products (postconsumer use) back to manufacturers. Examples include supply chains with consumer returns, leasing options, and end-of-use returns with remanufacturing. I classify the literature in terms of strategic, tactical, and operational issues, but I focus on strategic issues (such as when should an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) remanufacture, response to take-back legislation, and network design, among others) and tactical issues (used product acquisition and disposition decisions). The article is written in the form of a tutorial, where for each topic I present a base model with underlying assumptions and results, comment on extensions, and conclude with my view on needed research areas.

Closed-Loop Supply Chains: A Critical Review, and Future Research†

Adaptation-level theory.

Industry 4.0 combines the strengths of traditional industries with cutting edge internet technologies. It embraces a set of technologies enabling smart products integrated into intertwined digital and physical processes. Therefore, many companies face the challenge to assess the diversity of developments and concepts summarized under the term industry 4.0. The paper presents the result of a study on the potential of industry 4.0. The use of current technologies like Big Data or cloud-computing are drivers for the individual potential of use of Industry 4.0. Furthermore mass customization as well as the use of idle data and production time improvement are strong influence factors to the potential of Industry 4.0. On the other hand business process complexity has a negative influence.

https://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/9783319190266-c2.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-1512631-p177384986

Industry 4.0 - Potentials for Creating Smart Products: Empirical Research Results

Product returns cost U.S. companies more than $100 billion annually. The cost and scale of returns management issues necessitate a deeper understanding of how to deal with product returns. We develop an analytical model that describes how consumer purchase and return decisions are affected by a seller's pricing and restocking fee policy. Taking into account the consumers' strategic behavior, we derive the seller's optimal policy as a function of consumer preferences, consumer uncertainty about product attributes, consumer hassle cost for returns, and the effectiveness of the seller's forward and reverse channel capability. We allow for two sources of consumer uncertainty and show how the seller may use its price and restocking fee as a means of targeting a segment of consumers who know their product consumption utilities. We find that even if it is possible to eliminate returns costlessly through the provision of information about the fit between consumer preferences and product characteristics, returns can nevertheless be part of an optimal product sales process. That is, we identify conditions under which it is (or is not) optimal to provide product fit information to consumers. We show that the marginal value of information to the seller is decreasing in the operational efficiency of the seller's forward and reverse logistics process as well as the level of product uncertainty. We identify the impact of multiple product options and sources of consumer uncertainty on the model's results. The analysis generates testable hypotheses about how consumer-level and seller-level parameters affect the return policies observed in the marketplace.

/pdf/optimal-restocking-fees-and-information-provision-in-an-1qa7a9qhze.pdf

Optimal Restocking Fees and Information Provision in an Integrated Demand-Supply Model of Product Returns

This paper investigates the pricing and restocking fee decisions of two competing firms selling horizontally differentiated products. We model a duopoly facing consumers who have heterogeneous tastes for the products and who must experience a product before knowing how well it matches with their preferences. The analysis yields several key insights. Restocking fees not only can be sustained in a competitive environment, but also are more severe when consumers are less informed about product fit and when consumers place a greater importance on how well products' attributes fit with their preferences. We compare the competitive equilibrium prices to a scenario in which consumers are certain about their preferences and find conditions defining when consumer uncertainty results in higher equilibrium prices. Comparison to a monopoly setting yields a surprising result: Equilibrium restocking fees in a competitive environment can be higher than those charged by a monopolist.

This paper was accepted by Jagmohan S. Raju, marketing.

https://faculty.washington.edu/jshulman/documents/Managing%20Consumer%20Returns%20in%20a%20Competitive%20Environment.pdf

Managing Consumer Returns in a Competitive Environment

Consumers often return a product to a retailer because they learn after purchase that the product does not match as well with preferences as had been expected. This is a costly issue for retailers and manufacturers---in fact, it is estimated that the U.S. electronics industry alone spent $13.8 billion dollars in 2007 to restock returned products [Lawton, C. 2008. The war on returns. Wall Street Journal (May 8) D1]. The bulk of these returns were nondefective items that simply were not what the consumer wanted. To eliminate returns and to recoup the cost of handling returns, many retailers are adopting the practice of charging restocking fees to consumers as a penalty for making returns. This paper employs an analytical model of a bilateral monopoly to examine the impact of reverse channel structure on the equilibrium return policy and profit. More specifically, we examine how the return penalty is affected by whether returns are salvaged by the manufacturer or by the retailer. Interestingly, we find that the return penalty may be more severe when returns are salvaged by a channel member who derives greater value from a returned unit. Also, the manufacturer may earn greater profit by accepting returns even if the retailer has a more efficient outlet for salvaging units.

https://faculty.washington.edu/jshulman/documents/Optimal%20Reverse%20Channel%20Structure%20for%20Consumer%20Product%20Returns.pdf

Optimal Reverse Channel Structure for Consumer Product Returns

This paper uses an analytical model to examine the consequences of add-on pricing when firms are both horizontally and vertically differentiated and there is a segment of boundedly rational consumers who are unaware of the add-on fees at the time of initial purchase. We find that consumers who know the add-on fees can be penalized---and increasingly so---by the existence of boundedly rational consumers. Our consideration of quality asymmetries on base goods and add-ons, plus the inclusion of boundedly rational consumers, leads to several novel findings regarding firm profits. When quality asymmetry is on base goods only and with boundedly rational consumers, add-on pricing can diminish profit for a qualitatively superior firm and increase profit for an inferior firm i.e., a lose--win result, compared to when add-on pricing is prohibited or infeasible. When quality asymmetries exist on both base goods and add-ons and without boundedly rational consumers, the opposite win--lose result prevails. When quality asymmetries exist on both base goods and add-ons and with boundedly rational consumers, the result can be win--win, win--lose, or lose--win, depending on the magnitude of quality differentiation on add-ons.

This paper was accepted by J. Miguel Villas-Boas, marketing.

Add-on Pricing by Asymmetric Firms

The existing literature on channel coordination typically models markets where used goods are not sold, or are sold outside the standard channel. However, retailers routinely sell used goods for a profit in markets like textbooks. Further, such markets are characterized by a renewable consumer population over time, rather than the static consumer population often assumed in prior literature. We show that accounting for these market characteristics alters the optimal contract form as compared to the contracts derived in prior research. In particular, when new goods are sold in both the first and second periods of our model, the optimal contract differs from those in prior literature in that it can exhibit a negative fixed fee in the second period and requires contracting over the resale price in the second period. The model shows that the manufacturer makes higher profits from allowing used-good sales alongside new-good sales than from shutting down the retailer-profitable secondary market, and that unit sales expand with a profitable secondary market over those achievable without a secondary market. Furthermore, in contrast to previous investigations of durable goods markets that ignore the possibility of a retailer-profitable secondary market, we show conditions under which the manufacturer would optimally choose to sell no new goods in the second period, ceding the market entirely to the used-goods retailer. This research thus expands our knowledge of how durable goods markets work by incorporating the profitable operation of a retailer-run resale market.

https://faculty.washington.edu/jshulman/documents/Used%20goods,%20not%20used%20bads--Profitable%20secondary%20Market%20Sales%20for%20a%20Durable%20Goods%20Channel.pdf

Jeffrey D. Shulman

Papers

Optimal Restocking Fees and Information Provision in an Integrated Demand-Supply Model of Product Returns

Managing Consumer Returns in a Competitive Environment

Optimal Reverse Channel Structure for Consumer Product Returns

Add-on Pricing by Asymmetric Firms

Used goods, not used bads: Profitable secondary market sales for a durable goods channel