Essays on new business models in operations

• Main Author: LU, Liling
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2023
• Subjects: Anti-counterfeiting; Super fakes; Global operations management; Flexibility; Technology choice; Subscription programs; On-demand ride services; Congestion effect; Access control; Business Administration, Management, and Operations; Operations and Supply Chain Management
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/499; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/etd_coll/article/1497/viewcontent/GPOM_AY2018_PhD_Lu_Liling.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This dissertation consists of three essays about problems of managing operations with emerging new business models that are broadly related to anti-counterfeiting, car subscription programs, and on-demand ride-hailing services. In the following three chapters, each studies one type of new business model with opportunities and challenges, and builds analytical models to explore the implications on firms' operational decisions. Chapter 2 studies the emergence of “super fakes,” and investigates the effectiveness of the new anti-counterfeiting measure — converting counterfeiters to authorized suppliers. We employ a game-theoretic model to examine interactions between a brand-name firm with its home supplier, and a counterfeiter who produces high-quality counterfeits and can be potentially converted to an authorized overseas supplier. We demonstrate that it is easier for the brand-name firm to combat counterfeiting through conversion than by driving the counterfeiter out of the market. We examine the impact of this new measure on consumer and social surplus, and find that it may hurt consumer surplus and does not always improve social surplus. Chapter 3 studies flexible versus dedicated technology choice and capacity investment decision of a two-product manufacturing firm under demand uncertainty in the presence of subscription programs. The key feature of subscription programs is that a proportion of customers that are allocated a particular product later switches to using the other product (if available). We build a two-stage stochastic program to study the optimal technology choice and capacity investment decision, and the subsequent product allocation and reservation for each product. We investigate how the demand correlation and the switching proportion affect the profitability with each technology, and shape the optimal technology choice decision. Chapter 4 studies an on-demand ride-hailing platform partnering with traditional taxi companies for expanding the supply of drivers, and the government’s regulation problem of access control of taxi drivers to on-demand ride-hailing requests under such emerging partnership. We examine the conditions under which taxi drivers participate in providing both street-hailing and on-demand ride-hailing services. We investigate whether and how the government should make regulatory decisions to maximize social welfare. We find that advocating their partnership by allowing taxi drivers to get ``full access" to the platform may not be optimal and the regulation is needed.