This paper suggests a framework for operations managers to use in making focus decisions in professional services. This framework is supported empirically from data from the health care industry using three types of data: (1) industry statistics, (2) case studies, and (3) questionnaire surveys....

In this study, we investigate the impact of the seaport on host city’s economic development. Based on data from 41 major port cities in China over the period 2003–2010, our econometric analysis shows that port cargo throughput has a positive effect on the economic growth of the host city. In...

Price competition for retailers has been extensively studied in the literature assuming the objective of (expected) profit maximization. In this paper, we make a major contribution by studying price competition for retailers with both profit and revenue targets. Consequently, each retailer...

In the retail industry, stockouts have a significant effect on a firm׳s profitability. When a stockout takes place, retailers often apply one of two strategies to resolve the issue – placing an emergency order with their supplier or arranging a lateral transshipment with a nearby partner...

Manufacturers have increasingly instituted widespread mail-in rebate programs in recent years. Two primary purposes for rebates are to: (1) more directly impact consumer demand by reducing net retail price, and (2) capitalize on consumers' slippage behavior because not all consumers who intend...

This paper is the first to study pricing and target oriented decision making together in the newsvendor model. Specifically, this paper studies a newsvendor who decides on order quantity and selling price to maximize the probability of achieving both profit and revenue targets simultaneously....

Inventory competition for newsvendors (NVs) has been studied extensively under the objective of expected profit maximization which is based on risk neutrality. In this paper, we study this classic problem under the objective of profit satisficing which is based on downside-risk aversion....

This paper provides an industry standard on how to quantify the shape of the implied volatility smirk in the equity index options market. Our local expansion method uses a second-order polynomial to describe the implied volatility-moneyness function and relates the coefficients of the polynomial...