Business Administration

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10679/42

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Open Access
Ambulance location for maximum survival
(Wiley, 2008-02) Erkut, Erhan; Ingolfsson, A.; Erdoğan, G.; Business Administration; ERKUT, Erhan
This article proposes new location models for emergency medical service stations. The models are generated by incorporating a survival function into existing covering models. A survival function is a monotonically decreasing function of the response time of an emergency medical service (EMS) vehicle to a patient that returns the probability of survival for the patient. The survival function allows for the calculation of tangible outcome measures—the expected number of survivors in case of cardiac arrests. The survival-maximizing location models are better suited for EMS location than the covering models which do not adequately differentiate between consequences of different response times. We demonstrate empirically the superiority of the survival-maximizing models using data from the Edmonton EMS system.
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Assessment of patient classification in appointment system design
(Production and Operations Management Society, 2008-05) Çayırlı, Tuğba; Veral, E.; Rosen, H.; Business Administration; ÇAYIRLI, Tuğba
This paper investigates two approaches to patient classification: using patient classification only for sequencing patient appointments at the time of booking and using patient classification for both sequencing and appointment interval adjustment. In the latter approach, appointment intervals are adjusted to match the consultation time characteristics of different patient classes. Our simulation results indicate that new appointment systems that utilize interval adjustment for patient class are successful in improving doctors' idle time, doctors' overtime and patients' waiting times without any trade-offs. Best performing appointment systems are identified for different clinic environments characterized characterized by walk-ins, no-shows, the percentage of new patients, and the ratio of the mean consultation time of new patients to the mean consultation time of return patients. As a result, practical guidelines are developed for managers who are responsible for designing appointment systems.
Open Access
Optimal ambulance location with random delays and travel times
(Springer Science+Business Media, 2008-09) Ingolfsson, A.; Budge, S.; Erkut, Erhan; Business Administration; ERKUT, Erhan
We describe an ambulance location optimization model that minimizes the number of ambulances needed tonprovide a specified service level. The model measures service level as the fraction of calls reached within a given time standard and considers response time to be composed of a random delay (prior to travel to the scene) plus a random travel time. In addition to modeling the uncertainty in the delay and in the travel time, we incorporate uncertainty in the ambulance availability in determining the response time. Models that do not account for the uncertainty in all three of these components may overestimate the possible service level for a given number of ambulances and underestimate the number of ambulances needed to provide a specified service level. By explicitly modeling the randomness in the ambulance availability and in the delays and the travel times, we arrive at a more realistic ambulance location model. Our model is tractable enough to be solved with general-purpose optimization solvers for cities with populations around one Million. We illustrate the use of the model using actual data from Edmonton.
Open Access
Winners and losers in a major price war
(American Marketing Association, 2008-10) Heerde, H. J. van; Gijsbrechts, E.; Pauwels, Koen Hendrik; Business Administration; PAUWELS, Koen Hendrik
Although retail price wars have received much business press and some research attention, it is unclear how they affect consumer purchase behavior. This article studies an unprecedented price war in Dutch grocery retailing that started in fall 2003, initiated by the market leader to halt its sliding market share. The authors investigate the short- and longterm effects of the price war on store visits, on spending, and on the sensitivity of these decisions to weekly prices and price image. They use a unique data set with consumer hand-scan and perceptual data for a national panel of 1821 households, covering two years before and two years after the price war started. Although the price war initially entailed more shopping around and increased spending, spending per visit ultimately dropped because consumers redistributed their purchases across stores. The price war made consumers more sensitive to weekly prices and price image, which helped both the chain that showed an improvement in price image (the price war initiator) and the chains that already had a favorable price image (hard discounters). The price war initiator managed to halt the slide in its market share, and its stock price improved. The losers were the rival mid-level and high-end chains. Unlike the initiator, their price image did not improve, and they suffered from increased price image sensitivity. The authors provide managerial implications for firms that are (or about to be) involved in a price war.
Open Access
Private-label use and store loyalty
(American Marketing Association, 2008-11) Ailawadi, K. L.; Pauwels, Koen Hendrik; Steenkamp, J.-B. E. M.; Business Administration; PAUWELS, Koen Hendrik
The authors develop an econometric model of the relationship between a household’s private-label (PL) share and its behavioral store loyalty. The model includes major drivers of these two behaviors and controls for simultaneity and nonlinearity in the relationship between them. The model is estimated with a unique data set that combinescomplete purchase records of a panel of Dutch households with demographic and psychographic data. The authorsestimate the model for two retail chains in the Netherlands the leading service chain with a well-differentiatedhigh-share PL and the leading value chain with a lower-share PL. They find that PL share significantly affects all three measures of behavioral loyalty in the study: share of wallet, share of items purchased, andshare of shopping trips. In addition, behavioral loyalty has a significant effect on PL share. For the service chain, the authors find that both effects are in the form of an inverted U. For the value chain, the effects are positive and nonlinear, but they do not exhibit nonmonotonicity, because PL share has not yet reached high enough levels. The managerial implications of this research are important. Retailers can reap the benefits of a virtuous cycle; greater PL share increases share of wallet, and greater share of wallet increases PL share. However, this virtuous cycle operates only to a point because heavy PL buyers tend to be loyal to price savings and PLs in general, not to the PL of any particular chain.
Open Access
A review of timetabling and resource allocation models for light-rail transportation systems
(2009) Öncül, S. D.; Aykaç, Didem Selcen Öztürkcan; Bayraktar, D.; Çelebi, D.; Business Administration; ÖZTÜRKCAN AYKAÇ, Didem Selcen
This paper surveys the relevant operations research literature on timetabling and resource allocationproblems with a special attention paid to the transportation systems. The purpose of this review is to define the critical objectives, determine the key components and identify the key issues for developing a comprehensive mathematical model for timetabling of light rail transit vehicles in sequence with the assignment of drivers as an available resource. In doing so, the implications of the emerging timetabling research is discussed, components of the mathematical models proposed are reviewed, and the extend they reflect real business practices are analyzed. Finally, fundamental issues and primary elements of a simple model in association with general timetabling and resource allocation problems are presented.
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Pricing of national brands versus store brands: market power components, findings and research opportunities
(Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009) Pauwels, Koen Hendrik; Srinivasan, S.; Business Administration; Rao, V. R.; PAUWELS, Koen Hendrik
Among the most important activities for supermarket retailers is the creation and marketing of store brands, also known as private label brands. Given the increasing quality-equivalence between national brands and store brands, they have become direct competitors, and pricing decisions should take this into account. In most cases, national brands still possess some degree of pricing and market power over store brands. In this chapter, we define three components of market power for national brands versus store brands: (1) price premium; (2) volume premium; and (3) margin premium. Our chapter proceeds along the following lines. First, we delineate the factors that are the most important drivers of the three components of premium. Second, we discuss managerial implications about key success factors in the pricing of national brands and store brands. A key contribution of this chapter is that we incorporate emerging insights from the marketing literature on the pricing and market power of national brands versus store brands. Finally, we conclude by offering important future research directions.
Open Access
Social e-atmospherics in practice (or not): a French and Turkish web designers’ perspectives
(2009) Bisson, C.; Kervenoael, R. de; Aykaç, Didem Selcen Öztürkcan; Business Administration; ÖZTÜRKCAN AYKAÇ, Didem Selcen
Little is known about the development of social e- atmospherics. And yet, e-atmospherics havemotivated an emerging body of research which reports that both better layouts and‘recognized’ atmospherics encourage consumers to modify their shopping habits. While the literature has analyzed mainly the functional (design) aspect of e-atmospherics, little has been done in terms of linking its characteristics’ to social (co-) creation. This paper attempts to redress the imbalance by exploring the anatomy from a website designer perspective of the social dimension of design in relation to e-atmospherics, which includes factors such as the aesthetic design of space and the influence of visual cues as a socially constructed meaning. We identify the challenges that web designers as social agents, who interact within intangible social reference sets, restricted by social standards, value, beliefs, status and duties, face daily within their work. We aim to review the current understanding of the importance and voluntary integration of social cues displayed by web designers from a mature market and an emerging market, and provides an analysis based recommendation towards the development of an integrated e-social atmospheric framework. Results report exploratory findings from questionnaires with 10 French and 16 Turkish web designers. These allow us to re-interpret the web designers’ reality regarding social e-atmospherics. We contend that by comprehending (before any consumer/client input) social capital, daily micro practices, habits and routine of designers, a deeper understanding of social e-atmospherics possible functions in the future will be unpacked.
Open Access
Optimizing offer sets based on user profiles
(Social Science Research Network, 2009) Atahan, Pelin; Johar, M.; Sarkar, S.; Sectoral Education and Professional Development; DEMİRCİLER, Pelin Atahan
Personalization and recommendation systems are being increasingly utilized by ecommerce firms to provide personalized product offerings to visitors at the firms’ web sites. These systems often recommend, at each interaction, multiple items (referred to as an offer set) that might be of interest to a visitor. When making recommendations firms typically attempt to maximize their expected payoffs from the offer set. This paper examines how a firm can maximize its expected payoffs by leverag ing th e kn owledge of the profiles of visitors to their site. We provide a methodology that accounts for the interactions among items in an offer set in order to determine the expected payoff. Identifying the optimal offer set is a difficult problem when the number of candidate items to rec ommend is large. We develop an efficient heuristic for this problem, and show that it performs well for both small and large problem instances.
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An actor-network theory (ANT) approach: analysis of Turkish e-government gateway initiative
(2009) Aykaç, Didem Selcen Öztürkcan; Kervenoael, R. de; Kasap, N.; Eryarsoy, E.; Business Administration; ÖZTÜRKCAN AYKAÇ, Didem Selcen
There are various models proposed in the literature to analyze trajectories of e-Government projects in terms of success and failure. Yet, only the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) perspective (Heeks and Stanforth, 2007) considers the interaction factors among network actors and actants. This paper proposes the ANT for approaching to the Turkish e-Government Gateway initiative as a case study. In doing so, it provides valuable insight in terms of both local and global actornetworks which surround the initiative.
Open Access
Product innovations, advertising, and stock returns
(American Marketing Association, 2009-01) Srinivasan, S.; Pauwels, Koen Hendrik; Silva-Risso, J.; M. Hanssens, D.; Business Administration; PAUWELS, Koen Hendrik
Under increased scrutiny from top management and shareholders, marketing managers feel the need to measure and communicate the impact of their actions on shareholder returns. In particular, how do customer value creation (through product innovation) and customer value communication (through marketing investments) affect stock returns? This article examines, conceptually and empirically, how product innovations and marketing investments for such product innovations lift stock returns by improving the outlook on future cash flows. The authors address these questions with a large-scale econometric analysis of product innovation and associated marketing mix in the automobile industry. They find that adding such marketing actions to the established finance benchmark model greatly improves the explained variance in stock returns. In particular, investors react favorably to companies that launch pioneering innovations, that have higher perceived quality, that are backed by substantial advertising support, and that are in large and growing categories. Finally, the authors quantify and compare the stock return benefits of several managerial control variables. The results highlight the stock market benefits of pioneering innovations. Compared with minor updates, pioneering innovations have an impact on stock returns that is seven times greater, and their advertising support is nine times more effective as well. Perceived quality of the new car introduction improves the firm’s stock returns, but customer liking does not have a statistically significant effect.Promotional incentives have a negative effect on stock returns, indicating that price promotions may be interpreted as a signal of demand weakness. Managers can combine these return estimates with internal data on project costs to help decide the appropriate mix of product innovation and marketing investment.
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What does it take to get promoted in marketing academia? Understanding exceptional publication productivity in the leading marketing journals
(American Marketing Association, 2009-01) Seggie, Steven Head; Griffith, D. A.; Entrepreneurship; SEGGIE, Steven Head
Institutional competition to retain and recruit marketing scholars capable of publishing in the leading marketing journals has intensified. While increased emphasis has been placed on publication productivity in the leading marketing journals, little is known as to questions such as: (1) What level of publication productivity in the leading marketing journals does it take to getpromoted in marketing academia? (2) What level of publication productivity in the leading marketing journals warrants exception? and (3) What drives research productivity in the leading marketing journals? We draw on the economic concept of imperfect substitution to address these questions using two datasets: (1) a census of publication activity in the leading marketing journals of 337 scholars in the Top 70 institutions promoted between 1992-2006, and (2) anexamination of 2,672 scholars publishing 3,492 articles in the four leading marketing journals over the period 1982-2006. The results indicate that the average number of publications by successful candidates for promotion to associate professor from Ph.D. conferral at Top 10 institutions was .57 articles in the leading marketing journals per year, compared to .47 in the Top 11-20 institutions, .47 in the Top 21-40 institutions and .26 in the Top 41-70 institutions. Findings related to promotion to full professor from both Ph.D. conferral and from promotion to associate professor, and those identified as warranting exceptional publication productivity are also presented. The findings provide substantive implications for marketing academics, those involved with the recruitment and retention of marketing academics and the field of marketing thought.
Open Access
Computational comparison of five maximal covering models for locating ambulances
(Wiley, 2009-01) Erkut, Erhan; Ingolfsson, A.; Sim, T.; Erdoğan, Güneş; Business Administration; Industrial Engineering; ERKUT, Erhan; ERDOĞAN, Güneş
This article categorizes existing maximum coverage optimization models for locatingambulances based on whether the models incorporate uncertainty about (1) ambulanceavailability and (2) response times. Data from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada are used to test five different models, using the approximate hypercube model to compare solution quality between models. The basic maximum covering model, which ignores these two sources of uncertainty, generates solutions that perform far worse than those generated by more sophisticated models. For a specified number of ambulances, a model that incorporates both sources of uncertainty generates a configuration that covers up to 26% more of the demand than the configuration produced by the basic model.
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Approximating vehicle dispatch probabilities for emergency service systems with location-specific service times and multiple units per location
(Informs, 2009-02) Budge, S.; Ingolfsson, A.; Erkut, Erhan; Business Administration; ERKUT, Erhan
To calculate many of the important performance measures for an emergency response system, one requires knowledge of the probability that a particular server will respond to an incoming call at a particular location. Estimating these "dispatch probabilities" is complicated by four important characteristics of emergency service systems. We discuss these characteristics and extend previous approximation methods for calculating dispatch probabilities to account for the possibilities of workload variation by station, multiple vehicles per station, call- and station-dependent service times, and server cooperation and dependence.
Open Access
Premium e-grocery: exploring value in logistics integrated service solutions
(2009-02-12) Bozkaya, B.; Kervenoael, R. de; Aykaç, Didem Selcen Öztürkcan; Business Administration; ÖZTÜRKCAN AYKAÇ, Didem Selcen
E-grocery is gradually becoming viable or a necessity for many families. Yet, most e-supermarketsare seen as providers of low value “staple” and bulky goods mainly. While each store has a large number of SKU available, these products are mainly necessity goods with low marginal value for hedonistic consumption. A need to acquire diverse products (e.g., organic), premium priced products (e.g., wine) for special occasions (e.g., anniversary, birthday), or products just for health related reasons (e.g., allergies, diabetes) are yet to be served via one-stop e-tailers. In this paper, we design a mathematical model that takes into account consumers’ geo demographics and multi-product sourcing capacity for creating critical mass and profit. Our mathematical model is a variant of Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (CVRPTW), which we extend by adding intermediate locations for trucks to meet and exchange goods. We illustrate our model for the city of Istanbul using GIS maps, and discuss its various extensions as well as managerial implications.
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Online social capital : understanding e-impulse buying in practice
(Elsevier, 2009-07) Kervenoael, R. de; Aykaç, Didem Selcen Öztürkcan; Palmer, M.; Business Administration; ÖZTÜRKCAN AYKAÇ, Didem Selcen
Socially constructed marketing imageries (e.g. e-atmospherics) help consumers while making choices and decisions. Still, human and retailing technology interactions are rarely evaluated from a social practice perspective. This article explores the potential impact of socially constructed e-atmospherics on impulse buying. A framework with three interrelated factors, namely social acoustic, co-construction and mundane language enactment is analysed. The way these allow for e-social norms to organically emerge is elaborated through a set of propositions. Retailing implications are subsequently discussed.
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Exploring correlates of product launch in collaborative ventures: an empirical investigation of pharmaceutical alliances
(Wiley, 2009-07) Talay, M. B.; Seggie, Steven Head; Cavusgil, E.; Entrepreneurship; SEGGIE, Steven Head
This paper examines collaborative ventures leading toward the launch of new products in the pharmaceutical industry. These collaborative ventures are one of the most underresearched areas in the new product literature, yet the preponderance of these collaborative ventures makes it an area of great importance for scholars and practitioners alike. As such, the purpose of the study is to examine why some collaborative projects produce a favorable outcome (the launch of a product) whereas others do not. That is, what characteristics of partner firms in the collaborative ventures and what characteristics of the partnership lead to a successful launch of a new product in the pharmaceutical industry? Secondary data from the pharmaceutical industry are employed in a multinomial logit model. Data from 128 collaborative ventures from 1980 to 2004 are used in the analysis. The partner firms in the collaborative ventures are from various industries ranging from malt beverages to pharmaceutical preparations to electronic and other equipment among others. Of the 128 collaborative ventures, 66 were successful in leading to a new product launch, whereas 62 did not result in the launch of a new product. The results from the multinomial logit analysis suggest that combined marketing resources of parent companies, combined technological intensity of parent companies, and combined asset bases of parent companies contribute to the likelihood of an eventual product launch in a collaborative venture. However, the results of the analysis show that contrary to expectations, technological complementarity of partners in the collaborative venture is not a significant predictor of successful new product launch. The results of the study suggest certain aspects for managers to consider when establishing collaborative ventures. To maximize the possibilities of the collaborative venture leading to the successful launching of a new product, managers should be concerned with the resources potentially available to partners in the collaborative venture from parent firms. These resources are not only of a financial but also of a technological nature. The existence of these resources does not ensure provision of resources to the collaborative venture; however, without the possibility of these resources it appears that successful launch of a product is less likely.
Open Access
Effects of word-of-mouth versus traditional marketing: findings from an internet social networking site
(American Marketing Association, 2009-09) Trusov, M.; Bucklin, R. E.; Pauwels, Koen Hendrik; Business Administration; PAUWELS, Koen Hendrik
The authors study the effect of word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing on member growth at an Internet social networking site and compare it with traditional marketing vehicles. Because social network sites record the electronic invitations from existing members, outbound WOM can be precisely tracked. Along with traditional marketing, WOM can then be linked to the number of new members subsequently joining the site (sign-ups). Because of the endogeneity among WOM, new sign-ups, and traditional marketing activity, the authors employ a vector autoregression (VAR) modeling approach. Estimates from the VAR model show that WOM referrals have substantially longer carryover effects than traditional marketing actions and produce substantially higher response elasticises. Based on revenue from advertising impressions served to a new member, the monetary value of a WOM referral can be calculated; this yields an upper-bound estimate for the financial incentives the firm might offer to stimulate WOM.
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A Lagrangian relaxation approach to large-scale flow interception problems
(Elsevier, 2009-10-16) Gzara, F.; Erkut, Erhan; Business Administration; ERKUT, Erhan
The paper presents a tight Lagrangian bound and an efficient dual heuristic for the flow interception problem. The proposed Lagrangian relaxation decomposes the problem into two subproblems that are easy to solve. Information from one of the subproblems is used within a dual heuristic to construct feasible solutions and is used to generate valid cuts that strengthen the relaxation. Both the heuristic and the relaxation are integrated into a cutting plane method where the Lagrangian bound is calculated using a subgradient algorithm. In the course of the algorithm, a valid cut is added and integrated efficiently in the second subproblem and is updated whenever the heuristic solution improves. The algorithm is tested on randomly generated test problems with up to 500 vertices, 12,483 paths, and 43 facilities. The algorithm finds a proven optimal solution in more than 75% of the cases, while the feasible solution is on average within 0.06% from the upper bound.
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Dashboards as a service why, what, how, and what research is needed?
(Sage, 2009-11) Pauwels, Koen Hendrik; Ambler, T.; Clark, B. H.; LaPointe, P.; Reibstein, D.; Skiera, B.; Wierenga, B.; Wiesel, T.; Business Administration; PAUWELS, Koen Hendrik
Recent years have seen the introduction of a “marketing dashboard” that brings the firm’s key marketing metrics into a single display. Service firms across industries have created such dashboards either by themselves or together with a dashboardservice provider. This article examines the reasons for this development and explains what dashboards are, how to develop them, what drives their adoption, and which academic research is needed to fully exploit their potential. Overcoming the challenges faced in dashboard development and operation provides many opportunities for marketing to exercise a stronger influence on top management decisions. The article outlines five stages of dashboard development and discusses the relationships among demand for dashboards, supply of dashboards, and the implementation process in driving adoption and use of dashboard systems. Key topics for future research include metrics selection, relationships among metrics, and the ultimate question of whether dashboards provide sufficient benefits to justify their adoption.

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