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Full-Text Articles in Business
Optimal Service-Based Competition With Heterogeneous Suppliers, Ehsan Elahi, Saif Benjaafar, Karen L. Donohue
Optimal Service-Based Competition With Heterogeneous Suppliers, Ehsan Elahi, Saif Benjaafar, Karen L. Donohue
Management Science and Information Systems Faculty Publication Series
We investigate how a competition can be designed to maximize expected profit for a buyer who wishes to allocate demand among a diverse set of suppliers when his profit is dependent on the supplier’s service levels. The candidate suppliers are heterogeneous in their capacities and cost structures, and compete for shares of the buyer’s demand based on their promised service levels. To characterize the optimal competition, we first identify a family of allocation functions that are service maximizing, meaning they can intensify the competition to a point where each supplier provides its maximum feasible service level and the outcome of …
Outsourcing Via Service Competition, Ehsan Elahi, Saif Benjaafar, Karen Donohue
Outsourcing Via Service Competition, Ehsan Elahi, Saif Benjaafar, Karen Donohue
Management Science and Information Systems Faculty Publication Series
We consider a single buyer who wishes to outsource a fixed demand for a manufactured good or service at a fixed price to a set of potential suppliers. We examine the value of competition as a mechanism for the buyer to elicit service quality from the suppliers. We compare two approaches the buyer could use to orchestrate this competition: (1) a Supplier-Allocation (SA) approach, which allocates a proportion of demand to each supplier with the proportion allocated to a supplier increasing in the quality of service the supplier promises to offer, and (2) a Supplier-Selection (SS) approach, which allocates all …
Service Quality From The Other Side: Information Systems Management At Duquesne Light, Pratyush Bharati, Daniel Berg
Service Quality From The Other Side: Information Systems Management At Duquesne Light, Pratyush Bharati, Daniel Berg
Management Science and Information Systems Faculty Publication Series
Service organizations are continuously endeavoring to improve their quality of service as it is of paramount importance to them. Despite the importance of understanding the relationship of service quality and information systems, this research has not been pursued extensively. This study has addressed this gap in the research literature and studied how information systems impacts service quality. A research model is developed based on IS success model. System quality, information quality, user IT characteristics, employee IT performance and technical support are identified as important elements that influence service quality. An in-depth case study from the electric utility industry is used …