喻园管理论坛2022年第21期(总第790期)

演讲主题: Selling Credence Goods in the Presence of Consumer Waiting

主 讲 人: 姜   力，香港理工大学教授

主 持 人: 邓世名，威尼斯欢乐娱人城·首页生产运作与物流管理系教授

活动时间: 2022年6月17日（周五） 14:30-17:30

活动地点：线下地点：威尼斯欢乐娱人城·首页207教室

               线上腾讯会议ID: 911-675-0147

主讲人简介：

Professor Li Jiang obtained his PhD in Operations and Management Science from the Ross School of Business in the University of Michigan. He joined the Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2007 and is now a Full Professor. He holds a part-time appointment as Chair Professor in Xi’an Jiaotong University. His research interests include data-driven operations, information sharing, credence goods market, behavioural operations, and sharing economy platforms. He has published in Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, and Naval Research Logistics, and served on the editorial boards for these journals. Professor Jiang was recognized for outstanding scholarly contributions by the European Association of Operational Research in 2018, and was the recipient of National Scholar Award in 2020.

活动简介：

We consider a firm selling credence goods to consumers. Each consumer is uncertain about his or her need, which can be either intense or minor. The firm discerns the consumer’s need and can leverage its information advantage to overcharge or overtreat the consumer, who can decline the recommended service. Upon service acceptance, the consumer joins an unobservable queue and waits for receiving service. We demonstrate that the time efficiency (defined as the product of service rate and social surplus) of intense service relative to that of minor service, the composition of consumers in terms of their true needs and capacity are crucial to the occurrence and nature of unethical behavior. As intense service is more time efficient, the firm can be unethical when capacity is low or the need for intense service is high. As minor service is more time efficient, the firm is honest unless capacity is high and the need for intense service is high, in which case, the firm can overcharge. Overtreatment is less likely to occur than overcharging. Information asymmetry causes inefficiency by restricting the incentive of consumers to join the queue. Consumers cannot benefit from selectively accepting the firm’s service recommendations.

Joint work with Xiaokai Wu.