As sponsored search becomes increasingly important as an advertising medium for firms, search engines are exploring more advanced bidding and ranking mechanisms to increase their revenue from auctions for sponsored search advertising. For instance, Google, Yahoo! and Bing are experimenting with...

In sponsored search advertising, advertisers bid to be displayed in response to a keyword search. The operational activities associated with participating in an auction — submitting the bid and the ad copy, customizing bids and ad copies based various factors (such as the geographical region...

In many industries, product design and manufacturing lead-times are sufficiently long that both the quality level of a product and the amount of inventory produced must be determined before a firm knows what the actual demand will be. In this paper, we conduct a theoretical analysis of such a...

Traditional advertising, such as TV and print advertising, primarily builds awareness of a firm's product among consumers. On the other hand, sponsored search advertising can target consumers in a later stage of the purchase process because they self-identify themselves by searching for a...

Performance-based contracting is reshaping service support supply chains in capital-intensive industries such as aerospace and defense. Known as "power by the hour" in the private sector and as "performance-based logistics" (PBL) in defense contracting, it aims to replace traditionally used...

Firms that rely on functioning mission-critical equipment for their businesses cannot afford significant operational downtime due to system disruptions. To minimize the impact of disruptions, a proper incentive mechanism has to be in place so that the suppliers provide prompt restoration and...

During development of an innovative product there is often considerable uncertainty about component production cost, and it is of interest for both the manufacturer and the supplier to engage in a collaborative effort to reduce this uncertainty and lower the expected cost. Despite the obvious...