The Management of Technology: A Production and Operations Management Perspective

We highlight many of the traditional research themes in the management of technology as well as research themes on emerging topics such as those that appear in this focused issue. The discussion demonstrates the breadth and multidisciplinary nature of management of technology as well as the variety of methods employed in management of technology research. We conclude by offering a list of research themes that are of particular interest to the Management of Technology Department of Production and Operations Management.     

Training,Production, and Channel Separation in ITC's E‐Choupal Network

In recent years, I.T.C. Limited (hereafter ITC) developed the “e‐Choupals” for the rural areas of India. In this new business model, ITC reaches implicit agreements with some farmers (inside the network) that they can sell the products directly to ITC at the market price in the local market, but allow the farmers, both inside and outside the network, to access valuable information through the e‐Choupals. In this study, we investigate ITC's incentive of offering such opportunities, especially to those farmers outside the network, and analyze the farmers’ strategic quantity decisions. We show that the implicit agreement behaves as a formal contract, regardless of the price elasticity of the local market: Once reaching an agreement with ITC, the farmers always give priority to delivering directly to ITC. The e‐Choupal network leads naturally to the complete separation of selling channels, provided that ITC's capacity constraint is not tight. Surprisingly, in a variety of scenarios, ITC finds it optimal to provide the best available training to the farmers outside the network. We further show that our results are not prone to potential cheating in the mandi system, the possible exploitation via postponed payments, and the stochastic effects on the market‐clearing price.     

An Operations Perspective on Product Take‐Back Legislation for E‐Waste: Theory,Practice, and Research Needs

Agrowing stream of environmental legislation enforces collection and recycling of used electrical and electronics products. Based on our experiences with producers coping with e‐waste legislation, we find that there is a strong need for research on the implications of such legislation from an operations perspective. In particular, as a discipline at the interface of systems design and economic modeling, operations focused research can be extremely useful in identifying appropriate e‐waste take‐back implementations for different business environments and how producers should react to them.     

Managing Quality in the E‐Service System: Development and Application of a Process Model

In this paper, we develop a process model for assessing and managing e‐service quality based on the underlying components of the e‐service system and, in turn, address the growing need to look in more detail at the system component level for sources of poor quality. The proposed process model is comprised of a set of entities representing the e‐service system, a network defining the linking between all pairs of entities via transactions and product flows, and a set of outcomes of the processes in terms of quality dimensions. The process model is developed using Unified Modeling Language (UML), a pictorial language for specifying service designs that has achieved widespread acceptance among e‐service designers. Examples of applications of the process model are presented to illustrate how the model can be use to identify operational levers for managing and improving e‐service quality.     

The Dynamics of Pre‐ and Post‐purchase Service and Consumer Evaluation of Online Retailers: A Comparative Analysis of Dissonance and Disconfirmation Models*

This article explores the theoretical underpinnings of the dissonance framework in online consumer satisfaction formation process. Specifically, we suggest that any discrepancy between pre‐ and post‐purchase service performance would help determine consumers’ evaluations of online vendors. Drawing upon cognitive dissonance theory, a conceptual model is developed and tested in two different studies (preliminary and main studies). Using data from 191 college students collected longitudinally, the preliminary study demonstrates the validity and reliability of the measurements. Using a comparative analysis, the main study then tests our conceptual model as well as various competing models, including the expectation–confirmation model, with a sample of 292 online consumers. The results in both studies support our main prediction that the service encountered in different stages establishes dissonance. Specifically, we find that dissonance explains online consumers’ satisfaction process to a substantial extent, as compared with disconfirmation under the same conditions in online retailers. This study contributes to providing an alternative yet substantial approach for expectation–confirmation theory, reflecting the overarching nature of online shopping.