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

The Theory of Industrial Organization

Call centers are an increasingly important part of today's business world, employing millions of agents across the globe and serving as a primary customer-facing channel for firms in many different industries. Call centers have been a fertile area for operations management researchers in several domains, including forecasting, capacity planning, queueing, and personnel scheduling. In addition, as telecommunications and information technology have advanced over the past several years, the operational challenges faced by call center managers have become more complicated. Issues associated with human resources management, sales, and marketing have also become increasingly relevant to call center operations and associated academic research.

In this paper, we provide a survey of the recent literature on call center operations management. Along with traditional research areas, we pay special attention to new management challenges that have been caused by emerging technologies, to behavioral issues associated with both call center agents and customers, and to the interface between call center operations and sales and marketing. We identify a handful of broad themes for future investigation while also pointing out several very specific research opportunities.

/pdf/the-modern-call-center-a-multi-disciplinary-perspective-on-2kcrgkbqth.pdf

The Modern Call Center: A Multi-Disciplinary Perspective on Operations Management Research

The Theory of Incentives I: The Principal-Agent Model

The Art and Science of Negotiation

https://iridia.ulb.ac.be/IridiaTrSeries/rev/IridiaTr2006-002r001.pdf

An Iterated Greedy heuristic for the sequence dependent setup times flowshop problem with makespan and weighted tardiness objectives

This study compares the efficacy of some commonly observed vendor selection and contracting mechanisms with respect to two key challenges in service outsourcing: vendor selection and contract efficiency. We show that competitive bidding yields good selection but contract inefficiency (positive information rent paid by the client); in this process, the winning vendor's bid constitutes the terms of the contract between client and vendor. We then show that if instead the client establishes the contract terms then the "menu" it designs yields contract efficiency but poor selection. In one particular case - namely, when the client establishes the contract terms and may work with a previously nonselected vendor if the first vendor reneges - it is possible to attain good selection and contract efficiency. We also highlight the implications of performance-based contracts in services.

/pdf/vendor-selection-contract-efficiency-and-performance-4msj3y5qdf.pdf

Vendor Selection, Contract Efficiency, and Performance Measurement in Service Outsourcing

By using user generated content (UGC), specifically customer ratings, this paper disentangles the role of different dimensions of product quality in influencing consumer choice. We use a structural estimation model with endogenous prices and heterogeneous customer preferences to show that aesthetical design is the most salient factor of product quality in determining an automobile’s market share. Our results have important implications on an automobile manufacturer’s internal resource allocation strategy. We also highlight the changing role of on-line product review forums in the automobile industry’s value chain.

How Important is Design for the Automobile Value Chain

Antitrust regulations are meant to promote fair competition in the market, but balancing administrative and legal costs with enforcement can be difficult when multi-layered supply chains are involved. The canonical example of this challenge is the landmark Illinois Brick ruling, which limits antitrust damages to only the direct purchasers of a product; for instance, consumers can file antitrust claims against colluding retailers but not against colluding manufacturers -- only retailers can file claims against manufacturers. This controversial ruling was meant to reduce legal costs, but it can clearly lead to missed enforcement opportunities. In this paper we demonstrate how the Illinois Brick ruling interacts with contracts adopted in the supply chain and we show that otherwise equivalent supply chain arrangements can have markedly different effects. In particular, we find that wholesale price, minimum order quantity, revenue-sharing and quantity discount contracts lead retailers to take legal action against manufacturers in the event of collusive behavior. However, the wholesale price plus fixed fee contract structure (a.k.a. a two-part tariff or slotting fee contract) facilitates collusion among the manufacturers with retailers compensated by the fixed fee and not filing the antitrust litigation. We further demonstrate that collusion is more likely under high demand uncertainty and high competition at the retail level but is less likely under high competition at the manufacturer level. Our paper helps public enforcers identify market conditions conducive to antitrust violations.

/pdf/supply-chains-and-antitrust-governance-1jelcdxtf4.pdf

Supply chains and antitrust governance

formulate this problem in an agency setting with two independent aid programs, where dierent resource procurement and allocation mechanisms are considered and where investments in resources are of two types: a primary resource that is needed for providing the aid, and infrastructural investments that improve the operation of the aid program in using the primary resource. We show that allowing aid programs the exibil- ity of transferring primary resources improves the eciency of the system by yielding greater social welfare than when this exibility does not exist. More importantly, we show that a central procurer can further improve system eciency by providing a mechanism that facilitates the transfer of primary resources and eliminates losses from gaming. This outcome is achieved without depriving the individual aid programs of their decision-making autonomy while maintaining the constraints under which they operate. We nd that

Designing Ecient Resource Procurement and Allocation Mechanisms in Humanitarian Logistics

In this chapter, we outline the findings of the research on contracting in new product development from the perspective of mitigating agency issues in both the internal and external contexts to the firm. The literature has studied the role of contracting in aligning the incentives of both internal stakeholders and external partners, and the nature of decisions being made by the principal. A common set of agency issues studied in the literature is the use of contracts for coordinating single or multiple efforts to attain higher profits for the supply chain, and the division of profits between the different partners in the supply chain. Additionally, the mitigation of information asymmetry effects, the decision rights for exercising contracts, group and individual incentives, different contracting levers and monitoring of agent efforts have also been considered. Finally, simultaneous versus sequential decision-making, the use of informal contracts in addition to formal contracts, and the impact of risk profiles have been studied. We also identify critical gaps in the literature and propose directions for future research.

Sameer Hasija

Papers

Vendor Selection, Contract Efficiency, and Performance Measurement in Service Outsourcing

How Important is Design for the Automobile Value Chain

Supply chains and antitrust governance

Designing Ecient Resource Procurement and Allocation Mechanisms in Humanitarian Logistics

Contracting for New Product Development