Dynamic pricing and revenue management process in Internet retailing under uncertainty: An integrated real options approach

Competition and demand volatility often cause modern enterprises to be confronted by uncertain environments. When a firm manages revenue in such competitive and risky environments, the optimization of pricing and capacity allocation, subject to a fixed time and capacity, becomes a complicated problem. Many previous papers concerning revenue management (RM) and pricing require that the firm possesses the ability to know the demand curve (or demand distribution) and set prices on it to maximize profits. However, this assumption may not be the case in some industries. Therefore, this paper focuses on the dynamic lead indicators rather than assumptive lag indicators to establish a concise and flexible decision model for practical use. This paper provides an integrated real options (IRO) approach with analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for the auction RM problem under competitive/dynamic pricing and revenue uncertainty in Internet retailing. A numerical example is also presented to illustrate that the IRO approach can generate better decisions than the naı¨ve (or risk unawareness) approach in revenue quality of safety and profitability. The new perspective and approach proposed by this paper can be extended to other RM fields whenever both profitability and risk are critical to decision making.     

契约型战略联盟的灵活性期权价值研究

当面对较高程度的不确定性时,企业可以选择契约型战略联盟作为战略投资的治理模式,根据相关不确定因素的发展变化而选择不同的合作伙伴,这样,不但确保了战略投资灵活期权价值的实现,而且此治理模式本身也具有较灵活的期权价值.契约型联盟可以分为紧密型战略联盟和松散型战略联盟.本文应用期权动态规划定价模型,对紧密型联盟治理模式和松散型联盟契约治理模式的灵活性期权价值做了模型分析,并进行了相关参数的敏感性比较.分析结果表明,在一定范围内.当战略投资相关因素的不确定性程度较高时,应该选择较灵活的治理模式,如松散型战略联盟.     

日本制造企业新产品开发过程中模糊前端创新的效果分析

本文对日本制造企业新产品开发(NPD)过程中模糊前端(FFE)创新成功的关键因素进行了大样本分析,开发并构建了FFE创新要素与NPD项目绩效之间的因果关系模型.根据513家日本制造企业NPD项目的调查数据,运用AMOS验证因果关系模型,我们得出两个重要结论:在FFE阶段,技术和市场的不确定性减少越多,NPD项目的效率越高;开发前项目初始规划强度越大,开发过程中市场和技术的不确定性就越少.而且相对服务企业而言,制造企业的管理层更容易做出对降低市场不确定性有重大影响的初始规划.     

Estimating percentiles of uncertain computer code outputs

Summary.  A deterministic computer model is to be used in a situation where there is uncertainty about the values of some or all of the input parameters. This uncertainty induces uncertainty in the output of the model. We consider the problem of estimating a specific percentile of the distribution of this uncertain output. We also suppose that the computer code is computationally expensive, so we can run the model only at a small number of distinct inputs. This means that we must consider our uncertainty about the computer code itself at all untested inputs. We model the output, as a function of its inputs, as a Gaussian process, and after a few initial runs of the code use a simulation approach to choose further suitable design points and to make inferences about the percentile of interest itself. An example is given involving a model that is used in sewer design.     

Statistical Analysis of Uncertainties in Deterministic Computational Modeling – Application to Composite Process Resin Infusion Flow Model

Deterministic physics-based flow modeling provides an effective way to simulate and understand the resin flow infusion process in liquid composite molding processes and its variants. These are effective to provide optimal injection time and locations prior to gelation for given process parameters of resin viscosity and preform permeability. However, there could be significant variations in these two parameters during actual manufacturing. This paper presents simulation-based statistical analysis of uncertainties of these process parameters involved in the resin flow infusion. Two key process parameters, viscosity and permeability, and their statistical variations are examined individually and subsequently in combination for their impact on the associated injection time. Values from statistical probability distribution of the process parameters were employed to find the solution space for this engineering application through deterministic physics-based process flow modeling simulations. A bivariate confidence envelope was developed using the appropriate Cumulative Density Function for a 95% probability of successfully completing resin infusion prior to physical resin gelation time. A logistic regression model for the influence of resin viscosity and permeability on the binary response of successful resin infusion is presented and conforms well to the sensitivity analysis inferences.     

关于中国会计准则中处理不确定性方法的思考

文章通过对会计不确定性的来源、成因和计量方法的分析,指出了在我国会计准则中处理会计不确定性问题的一些不足,指出在处理会计不确定性时应采用一些更为科学的估计和判断方法,主要有:对不确定性程度更详细地分类,制定更合理的不确定性事项的会计准则,注重附注、表外披露等。     

A management policy for sika deer based on sex-specific hunting

We consider here a management policy for a sika deer (Cervus nippon) population in the eastern part of Hokkaido. Deer populations are characterized by a large intrinsic rate of population increase, no significant density effects on population growth before population crash, and a relatively simple life history. Our goals of management for the deer population are (1) to avoid irruption with severe damage to agriculture and forestry, (2) to avoid the risk of extinction of the deer population, and (3) to maintain a sustainable yield of deer. To make a robust program on the basis of uncertain information about the deer population, we consider three levels of relative population size and four levels of hunting pressures. We also take into consideration a critical level for extinction, an optimal level, and an irruption level. The hunting pressure for females is set to increase with the population size. We also recommend catching males if the population size is between the critical and optimal levels and catching females and males if the population size is larger than the optimal level. We must avoid cases of irruption or threatened population under various sets of uncertain parameter values. The simulation results suggest that management based on sex-specific hunting is effective to diminish the annual variation in hunting yield. Received: April 8, 1998 / Accepted: December 25, 1998     

Innovating firms’ strategic signaling along the innovation life cycle: The standards war context

Firms that develop market-focused technological innovations regularly employ strategic signals to influence market participants’ perceptions of the uncertainties that pervade innovation-based competition. Focusing on the standards war context, we argue that an innovation’s technical, market and standards uncertainties will vary as the innovation evolves through its life cycle, influencing innovating firms’ strategic signaling behaviors and, hence, the impacts of these signals on market participants’ perceptions of these firms’ likelihood of innovation success. We also examine how such influences vary depending on innovating firms’ strategic positions during different phases of the innovation life cycle. Our insights are developed into testable propositions.     

Uncertainty: the Curate's egg in financial economics

Economic theories of uncertainty are unpopular with financial experts. As sociologists, we rightly refuse predictions, but the uncertainties of money are constantly sifted and turned into semi‐denial by a financial economics set on somehow beating the future. Picking out ‘bits’ of the future as ‘risk’ and ‘parts’ as ‘information’ is attractive but socially dangerous, I argue, because money's promises are always uncertain. New studies of uncertainty are reversing sociology's neglect of the unavoidable inability to know the forces that will shape the financial future. ¹      

动态复杂自反馈系统预警系数与黄金分割律

无论是自然巨系统抑或是今天这个庞大的“流动性社会”系统,唯一的确定是不确定,唯一的不变是变化.借用集对分析理论中的同一度、对立度、差异度等核心概念,在作相应的改进和改造后,致力于动态复杂自反馈系统预警系数测量模型的构建；同时,结合一直困扰着人们的“黄金分割律”以及斐波纳契数列中所出现的黄金分割点和神秘比值,在相互印证中,论证了动态复杂自反馈系统预警系数推导的科学性、准确性及其与黄金分割律的内在一致性.