Quite often transportation companies face two types of jobs, ones which they can plan themselves and ones which have to be done on call. In this paper we study the scheduling of these jobs, while we assume that job durations are known beforehand as well as windows in which the jobs need to be...

Critics have long faulted the wide-spread practice of trade promotions as wasteful. It has been estimated that this practice adds up to $100 billion worth of inventory to the distribution system. Yet the practice continues. In this paper, we propose a price-discrimination model of trade...

General purpose technologies (GPTs) have been important drivers of industrial revolutions and economic development, but their link to standards has not been analyzed systematically. We document that all of the most common examples of GPTs—steam, railway, electricity and information (and...

Recently, there have been several retail companies experiencing bankruptcy. Many studies on bankruptcy risk are more seen from the financial performance perspective. Studies on the risk of financial performance are good but it seems too late to detect the risk. So far, no research investigates...

We study the value of inventory integration (or pooling) for a firm selling a seasonal good over two periods: in the first period the firm charges a high price, and in the second period the firm charges a low price to clear remaining inventory. Consumers are rational and decide when to visit the...

The financial market gives significant consideration to the supply chain activities of publicly listed firms, which could in turn use their investments in the supply chain to manage market expectations. We study the effects of the capital market concerns of a publicly traded retailer that...

In many industries, product design and manufacturing lead-times are sufficiently long that both the quality level of a product and the amount of inventory produced must be determined before a firm knows what the actual demand will be. In this paper, we conduct a theoretical analysis of such a...

Although nascent ventures have not yet developed a performance-based reputation, the individual reputations of their founders, based on the performance of their earlier ventures, can function as important signals to investors. Selection system theory distinguishes between different types of...

We consider an exporting firm facing FX risk. We show that FX options are not used for hedging, if there is no ex-post production flexibility. Hence, in the standard setting of having no ex-post optionality, hedging with forwards is the best choice.The value of FX options for hedging arises as...

Retailers often offer price and quantity promotions to customers during clearance sales. In a price promotion, they offer discounted unit prices. In a quantity promotion, they usually offer a buy-one-get-one free (BOGO) or buy-two-get-one free (BTGO) policy. Under BOGO, customers buying one unit...