In an innovation contest, a firm (the seeker) facing an innovation-related problem (e.g., a technical R& D problem) posts this problem to a population of independent agents (the solvers) and then provides an award to the agent that generated the best solution. In this paper, we analyze the...

Consumers often know what kind of product they wish to purchase, but do not know which specific variant best fits their needs. As a result, a consumer may find an acceptable product in one retailer but nevertheless purchase nothing, opting to search other retailers for an even better product. We...

This paper studies a model in which consumers search among multiple competing firms for products that match their preferences at a reasonable price. We focus on how easier search, possibly due to the adoption of search-facilitating technologies such as the Internet, influences equilibrium...

In our prior work on product diffusions in presence of a capacity constraint, we postulated that a firm operating in such an environment should always attempt to fulfill as much of the present demand as is possible with the capacity constraint. In other words, the firm would never have demand...

We use hospital-level discharge data from cardiac patients in California to estimate the effects of focus on operational performance. We examine focus at three distinct levels of the organization--at the firm level, at the operating unit level, and at the process flow level. We find that focus...

The Bass diffusion model is a well-known parametric approach to estimating new product demand trajectory over time. This paper generalizes the Bass model by allowing for a supply constraint. In the presence of a supply constraint, potential customers who are not able to obtain the new product...

We study the demand forecast-sharing process between a buyer of customized production equipment and a set of equipment suppliers. Based on a large data collection we undertook in the semiconductor equipment supply chain, we empirically investigate the relationship between the buyer's forecasting...

Overlapping development activities is widely used to reduce project completion times in product development. However, research on the applicability of the concept in different technological environments remains scarce. So far, very few industry-specific studies have statistically confirmed an...

A major challenge in the creation of custom-designed products lies in the elicitation of customer needs. As customers are frequently unable to accurately articulate their needs, designers typically create one or several prototypes, which they then present to the customer. This process, which we...