竞争环境下客户服务投入对企业利润影响的均衡分析

客户服务投入是企业吸引新顾客和维持现有顾客的重要手段之一。然而,服务投入究竟是否能给企业带来价值？对于这一问题,业界和学界都没有明确的答案。本文通过建模的方法研究在竞争的市场环境下,固有的市场因素对客户服务投入价值的影响。研究发现,服务竞争的市场均衡结构是两家厂商都投入客户服务。服务投入给企业带来的价值随着产品差异度的提高而提高,随着厂商自身市场份额的增加而增加。即,在产品差异度高的市场,服务投入更容易给企业带来价值。而在集中度高的市场,服务投入更容易给市场份额大的企业带来价值。     

Demand and Production Management with Uniform Guaranteed Lead Time

Recently, innovation‐oriented firms have been competing along dimensions other than price, lead time being one such dimension. Increasingly, customers are favoring lead time guarantees as a means to hedge supply chain risks. For a make‐to‐order environment, we explicitly model the impact of a lead time guarantee on customer demands and production planning. We study how a firm can integrate demand and production decisions to optimize expected profits by quoting a uniform guaranteed maximum lead time to all customers. Our analysis highlights the increasing importance of lead time for customers, as well as the tradeoffs in achieving a proper balance between revenue and cost drivers associated with lead‐time guarantees. We show that the optimal lead time has a closed‐form solution with a newsvendor‐like structure. We prove comparative statics results for the change in optimal lead time with changes in capacity and cost parameters and illustrate the insights using numerical experimentation.     

Sourcing Information Security Operations: The Role of Risk Interdependency and Competitive Externality in Outsourcing Decisions

Firms are increasingly outsourcing information security operations to managed security service providers (MSSPs). Cost reduction and quality (security) improvement are often mentioned as motives for outsourcing information security, and these are also the frequently cited reasons for outsourcing traditional information technology (IT) functions, such as software development and maintenance. In this study, we present a different explanation—one based on interdependent risks and competitive externalities associated with IT security—for firms' decisions to outsource security. We show that in the absence of competitive externalities and interdependent risks, a firm will outsource security if and only if the MSSP offers a quality advantage over in‐house operations, which is consistent with the conventional explanation for security outsourcing. However, when security risks are interdependent and breaches impose competitive externalities, although firms still have stronger incentive to outsource security if the MSSP offers a higher quality in terms of preventing breaches than in‐house management, a quality advantage of MSSP over in‐house management is neither a prerequisite for a firm to outsource security nor a guarantee that a firm will. In addition to MSSP quality, the type of externality (positive or negative), the degree of externality, whether outsourcing increases or decreases risk interdependency, and the breach characteristics determine firms' sourcing decisions. When security breaches impose a positive externality, the incentive to outsource is enhanced if the MSSP decreases the risk interdependency and diminished if the MSSP increases this interdependency. A negative externality has the opposite effect on firms' incentives to outsource. A high demand spillover to a competitor, together with a high loss in industry demand because of a security breach, enhances these incentives to outsource security operations when the externality is negative. Finally, we extend our base model in several dimensions and show that our main results regarding the impact of interdependent risks and competitive externalities on sourcing decisions are robust and generalizable to different specifications.     

Performance effects of IT capability, service process innovation, and the mediating role of customer service

Few academic studies have investigated how information technology (IT) capability and service process innovation can create performance gains for firms through customer service. We propose that customer service is a significant mediator through which IT capability and service process innovation influence the performance of a firm, and that IT capability is also a critical factor that facilitates service process innovation. Empirical support for our argument was derived from data collected from 174 firms in the Taiwan IT industry. The results suggest that managerial initiatives should be directed at developing IT capability and service process innovation and leveraging them to facilitate customer service to attain superior firm performance. Furthermore, greater IT capability would lead to a higher degree of service process innovation.     

Information Technology and Process Performance: An Empirical Investigation of the Interaction Between IT and Non‐IT Resources*

Drawing on the resource‐based view, we propose a configurational perspective of how information technology (IT) assets and capabilities affect firm performance. Our premise is that IT assets and IT managerial capabilities are components in organizational design, and as such, their impact can only be understood by taking into consideration the interactions between those IT assets and capabilities and other non‐IT components. We develop and test a model that assesses the impact of explicit and tacit IT resources by examining their interactions with two non‐IT resources (open communication and business work practices). Our analysis of data collected from a sample of firms in the third‐party logistics industry supports the proposed configurational perspective, showing that IT resources can either enhance (complement) or suppress (by substituting for) the effects of non‐IT resources on process performance. More specifically, we find evidence of complementarities between shared business–IT knowledge and business work practice and between the scope of IT applications and an open communication culture in affecting the performance of the customer‐service process; but there is evidence of substitutability between shared knowledge and open communications. For decision making, our results reinforce the need to account for all dimensions of possible interaction between IT and non‐IT resources when evaluating IT investments.     

Investing in a Shared Supplier in a Competitive Market: Stochastic Capacity Case

When firms invest in a shared supplier, one key concern is whether the invested capacity will be used for a competitor. In practice, this concern is addressed by restricting the use of the capacity. We consider what happens when two competing firms invest in a shared supplier. We consider two scenarios that differ in how capacity is used: exclusive capacity and first‐priority capacity. We model firms' investment and production decisions, and analyze the equilibrium outcomes in terms of the number of investing firms and capacity levels for each scenario; realized capacity is a stochastic function of investment levels. We also identify conditions under which the spillover effect occurs, where one firm taps into the other firm's invested capacity. Although the spillover supposedly intensifies competition, it actually discourages firms' investment. We also characterize the firms' and supplier's preference about the capacity type. While the non‐investing firm always prefers spillovers from the first‐priority capacity, the investing firm does not always want to shut off the other firm's access to its leftover capacity, especially when allowing spillover induces the other firm not to invest. The supplier's preference depends on the trade‐off between over‐investment and flexibility.     

Operational Hedging and Diversification under Correlated Supply and Demand Uncertainty

When facing supply uncertainty caused by exogenous factors such as adverse weather conditions, firms diversify their supply sources following the wisdom of “not holding all eggs in one basket.” We study a firm that decides on investment and production levels of two unreliable but substitutable resources. Applying real options thinking, production decisions account for actual supply capabilities, whereas investment decisions are made in advance. To model triangular supply and demand correlations, we adapt the concepts of random capacity and stochastic proportional yield while using concordant ordered random variables. Optimal profit decreases monotonically in supply correlation and increases monotonically in supply–demand correlation. Optimal resource selection, however, depends on the trivariate interplay of supply and demand and responds non‐monotonically to changing correlations. Moreover, supply hedges (i.e., excess capacity at alternative sources) can be optimal even if supply resources are perfectly positively correlated. To accommodate changing degrees of correlation, the firm adjusts the lower margin capacities under random capacity; but under stochastic proportional production capability, it uses either low‐ or high‐margin capacities to create tailored “scale hedges” (i.e., excess capacity at one source which can partially substitute for diversification).     

强制性约束下企业信息安全投资与网络保险的最优决策分析

研究了强制性约束下企业信息安全投资和网络保险的最优决策问题,对比了可观测企业损失和不可观测企业损失两种情形下基于破产概率约束的最优安全投资和网络保险保费厘定。研究结果表明：在可观测损失和公平保费情况下,当最大化单个企业的期望效用时,存在最优安全投资额,并且政府补贴和强制性约束都可以激励企业增加安全投资;但是当最大化所有企业效用时,只有强制性约束才能增加企业安全投资使得总效用最大化,并且企业的最优安全投资与损失的可观测程度无关。在不可观测损失情况下,当最大化单个企业期望效用时,企业的安全投资增大,而最大化所有企业效用时,存在正网络外部性,即任何企业均不敢轻易的减少安全投资,即使同在一个网络中的其他企业减少了安全投资。此外,在破产概率约束下,随着保费的增加,当损失可观测时,企业的安全投资也增加,但期望效用减少了;而当损失不可观测时,企业的安全投资和期望效用均减少。本文所得结论对政府设定强制性标准,以及企业利用安全投资和网络保险进行信息安全风险控制具有较好的参考价值。     

Managing Technology Selection and Development Risk in Competitive Environments

Managing development decisions for new products based on dynamically evolving technologies is a complex task, especially in highly competitive industries. Product managers often have to choose between introducing an incrementally better, safe new product early and a superior, yet highly risky, product later. Recommendations for managing such performance vs. time‐to‐market trade‐offs often ignore competitive reactions to development decisions. In this paper, we study how a firm could incorporate the presence of a strategic competitor in making technology selection and investment decisions regarding new products. We consider a model in which an innovating firm and its rival can introduce a new product immediately or pursue a more advanced product for later launch. Further, the firm can reduce the uncertainty surrounding product development by dedicating more resources; the effectiveness of this investment depends on the firm's innovative capacity. Our model generates two sets of insights. First, in highly competitive industries, firms can adopt different technologies and effectively use introduction timing to mitigate the effects of price competition. More importantly, the firm could strategically invest in the advanced product to influence its rival's technology choice. We characterize equilibrium development and investment decisions of the firms, and derive innovative capacity hurdles that govern a firm's choice between the risky and safe alternatives. The effects of development flexibility—where firms might have the option to revert to the safe product if the advanced product fails—are also considered.     

Strategic Capacity Management When Customers Have Boundedly Rational Expectations

In retailing industries, such as apparel, sporting goods, customer electronics, and appliances, many firms deploy sophisticated modeling and optimization software to conduct dynamic pricing in response to uncertain and fluctuating market conditions. However, the possibility of markdown pricing creates an incentive for customers to strategize over the timing of their purchases. How should a retailing firm optimally account for customer behavior when making its pricing and stocking/capacity decisions? For example, is it optimal for a firm to create rationing risk by deliberately under stocking products? In this study, we develop a stylized modeling framework to answer these questions. In our model, customers strategize over the timing of their purchases. However, customers have boundedly rational expectations in the sense of anecdotal reasoning about the firm's fill rate, i.e., they have to rely on anecdotes, past experiences, or word‐of‐mouth to infer the firm's fill rate. In our modeling framework, we distinguish two settings: (i) capacity commitment, where the firm commits to its capacity level in the long run, or (ii) the firm dynamically changes it in each season. For both settings, within the simplest form of anecdotal reasoning, we prove that strategic capacity rationing is not optimal independent of customer risk preferences. Then, using a general form of anecdotal reasoning, we provide sufficient conditions for capacity rationing to be optimal for both settings, respectively. We show that the result of strategic capacity rationing being suboptimal is fairly robust to different valuation distributions and utility functions, heterogeneous sample size, and price optimization.     

基于资源观的企业IT能力与企业绩效研究

在企业广泛应用信息技术提高竞争能力之际,信息化如何给企业带来效益一直是国内外研究的热点问题.在回顾相关文献的基础上,利用基于资源观的概念框架分析企业IT资源,建立企业IT能力模型;采用配对样本比较和统计检验方法,对企业IT能力与企业绩效之间的关系进行实证分析.研究结果表明,具有卓越IT能力的企业会表现出更好的绩效,这些企业具有显著较高的营业净利率、总资产收益率、净资产收益率和人均净利润.企业不仅需要进行IT投资,更重要的是把IT投资内化为整个企业的IT能力,只有这样IT才会更好地给企业带来效益,这有助于指导中国企业信息化工程的建设和论证.     

Process Improvement,Learning, and Real Options

We use a real‐options approach to analyze investments in process improvement. We develop a simple, stochastic model of a firm making investment decisions in process improvement. Our analysis offers several interesting insights into investments in process improvement. First, early investment in process improvement results in valuable knowledge, which helps increase the value of the option to invest in process improvement in future periods. This may motivate a firm to invest in process improvements as early as possible. Second, it may be optimal for a firm to stop investing when such investments do not create enough value in the later stages of the investment horizon. Third, although one would expect the state of a firm's process relative to that of other firms to impact a firm's decision to invest in process improvement, this study finds that the impetus is conditional and identifies these conditions. Finally, in such an environment, the delay of investment in process improvement incurs an opportunity cost for a firm, and we show that the traditional net present value rule must incorporate this opportunity cost and the knowledge‐induced change in future option values to lead to a correct investment decision.     

Product Launches and Buying Frenzies: A Dynamic Perspective

Buying frenzies caused by a firm's intentional undersupplying of a new product are frequently evident in several industries including electronics (cell phones, video games), luxury automobiles, and fashion goods. We develop a dynamic model of buying frenzies that incorporates the firm's manufacturing and sale of a product over time and characterizes the conditions under which inducing such frenzies is an optimal strategy. We find that buying frenzies occur when customers are sufficiently uncertain about their valuations of the product and when they discount the future sufficiently but not excessively. We propose measures of “customer desperation” and of the extent of scarcity to measure the depth and breadth of buying frenzies, respectively. We also demonstrate that such frenzies can have a significantly positive effect on firm profits and partially recover the loss due to non‐commitment to future prices. This study provides managerial insights on how firms can influence market response to a new product through production, pricing, and inventory decisions to induce profitable frenzies.     

信息技术、核心能力和企业绩效的实证研究

信息技术增强企业竞争力的机理是有效提升企业信息技术应用水平的重要前提。基于核心能力理论构建信息技术资源和信息技术应用能力通过企业核心能力这一中介变量影响企业绩效的理论模型,并考虑环境动态性在信息技术增强企业竞争力过程中的调节效应,应用偏最小二乘法的结构方程模型,对中国296家企业的问卷调查数据进行分析。研究结果表明,在不考虑环境动态性的情况下,无论是信息技术资源还是信息技术应用能力都无法直接影响企业绩效,信息技术必须通过支持企业核心能力间接影响企业绩效;环境动态性在信息技术增强企业竞争力过程中有显著的调节作用,不同环境下信息技术影响企业绩效的机理是不同的,在稳定环境下企业信息技术应用的重点是获取支持核心能力的信息技术资源,在动态环境下企业更应该构建信息技术应用能力,才能实现对不断变化的核心能力的持续支持,进而提升企业绩效。     

Cyber Security Risk Management: Public Policy Implications of Correlated Risk,Imperfect Ability to Prove Loss,and Observability of Self‐Protection

The correlated nature of security breach risks, the imperfect ability to prove loss from a breach to an insurer, and the inability of insurers and external agents to observe firms’ self‐protection efforts have posed significant challenges to cyber security risk management. Our analysis finds that a firm invests less than the social optimal levels in self‐protection and in insurance when risks are correlated and the ability to prove loss is imperfect. We find that the appropriate social intervention policy to induce a firm to invest at socially optimal levels depends on whether insurers can verify a firm's self‐protection levels. If self‐protection of a firm is observable to an insurer so that it can design a contract that is contingent on the self‐protection level, then self‐protection and insurance behave as complements. In this case, a social planner can induce a firm to choose the socially optimal self‐protection and insurance levels by offering a subsidy on self‐protection. We also find that providing a subsidy on insurance does not provide a similar inducement to a firm. If self‐protection of a firm is not observable to an insurer, then self‐protection and insurance behave as substitutes. In this case, a social planner should tax the insurance premium to achieve socially optimal results. The results of our analysis hold regardless of whether the insurance market is perfectly competitive or not, implying that solely reforming the currently imperfect insurance market is insufficient to achieve the efficient outcome in cyber security risk management.     

Marketing Is from Mars,IT Is from Venus: Aligning the Worldviews for Firm Performance

A typical firm is operated by multiple functional managers who may collaborate as well as compete to achieve firm performance. In the digital age, firm performance is essentially customer‐dependent and technology‐dependent, with both marketing and information technology (IT) playing key roles. Unfortunately the two functions often have very different worldviews. We show how these differences can damage firm performance, and suggest ways to mitigate this damage. We build a worldview difference model, synthesized from multiple disciplines. The model is tested using both matched and nonmatched observations from marketing and IT managers, and is analyzed with hierarchical linear models using both perceptual and objective firm performance data over a 4‐year period. We find that differences between the beliefs and perceptions of marketing managers and IT managers generate a negative impact on firm performance, and suggest appropriate technology‐culture associations to effectively align their worldviews for firm performance. To improve firm performance, a cross‐functional appreciation for market and technology drivers can be achieved by making marketing managers more learning‐oriented and by providing IT managers a culture that is congruent with technology.     

Production,Process Investment,and the Survival of Debt‐Financed Startup Firms

Whether to invest in process development that can reduce the unit cost and thereby raise future profits or to conserve cash and reduce the likelihood of bankruptcy is a key trade‐off faced by many startup firms that have taken on debt. We explore this trade‐off by examining the production quantity and cost reducing R&D investment decisions in a two period model wherein a startup firm must make a minimum level of profit at the end of the first period to survive and operate in the second period. We specify a probabilistic survival measure as a function of production and investment decisions to track and manage the risk exposure of the startup depending on three key market factors: technology, demand, and competitor's cost. We develop managerial insights by characterizing how to create operational hedges against the bankruptcy risk: if a startup makes a “conservative” investment decision, then it also selects an optimal quantity that is less than the monopoly level and hence sacrifices some of first period expected profits to increase its survival chances. If it decides to invest “aggressively,” then it produces more than the monopoly level to cover the higher bankruptcy risk. We also illustrate that debt constraint shrinks the decision space, wherein such process investments are viable.     

Political connections and firm operational efficiencies: evidence from a developing country

This paper investigates the impact of political connections on firm operational efficiencies. We test the political interventions in investment and employment decisions. Our results provide strong support for the presence of investment inefficiencies and excessive employment amongst politically connected firms, whereas the detrimental effect of political interventions is substantially larger on employment decisions. We further find that such operational inefficiencies are more pronounced for low-growth connected firms. Finally, the economy-wide cost of the excessive employments is estimated to be 0.19 % of GDP annually.     

消费者预算约束对推荐奖励策略的影响研究

在社会化商务研究中,大多数研究考虑消费者的购买意愿对企业决策的影响,很少有文献探讨消费者的资金不足时对企业开展在线营销活动效果的影响.本文讨论了当消费者消费预算有约束情况下,在线企业采用推荐奖励策略对营销效果的影响.首先建立了销售企业、已有顾客、已有顾客的朋友(潜在顾客)三者之间的博弈模型,其中假设朋友的预算是私有信息,企业和已有顾客不知道该信息.通过对博弈模型的求解,发现当朋友存在预算约束时,企业采用高价格、高奖励的推荐奖励策略并不总是有效;当潜在顾客(朋友)对产品的购买意愿处于中间状态时,只有其预算偏高时,企业采取推荐奖励策略才能获得更高的利润.此外,在基本推荐奖励策略的基础上,拓展企业提供融资策略以及考虑朋友对推荐奖励反感程度的情况.研究发现,融资成本较高时,融资和奖励之间存在相互替代效果,但融资成本较低时,与融资效果与消费者的购买意愿程度相关;当潜在消费者对推荐策略存在反感时,企业仍存在一定的赢利空间.研究结果对在线企业开展推荐奖励策略的实践具有参考价值.