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Abstract:
The Internet provides an unprecedented capability for sellers to learn about their customers and offer custom products at special prices. Advanced manufacturing technologies have improved sellers' manufacturing flexibility. To examine how these advances affect sellers' products and pricing,we first develop a model of product customization and flexible pricing to incorporate the salient roles of the Internet and flexible manufacturing technologies in reducing the costs of designing and producing tailored consumer goods. A monopoly seller may earn the highest profits by producing both standard and custom products. Surprisingly, the monopoly can raise his prices for both standard and customized products as customization and information collection technologies improve.

Simultaneous adoption of customization in a duopoly reduces the differentiation between their standard products but does not intensify price competition. Compared with a two-facility monopolist, each duopolist may under-invest in customization. Consumer surplus improves after sellers adopt customization but does not always increase as technologies advance. When firms
face a fixed entry cost and adopt customization sequentially, the first entrant always achieves a profit advantage and may even deter the entry of the late entrant by choosing his customization scope strategically.

Mass Customization, Price Discrimination, Product Differentiation, Internet Economics

Abstract:
Technology adoption has become an important management issue in today's decentralized organizations. Disparate systems and the attendant incompatibility costs between users and departments within an organization can create inefficiencies and reduce productivity. Fortunately,the managers of the organization have a rich tool-set - incentives and standards that they can use to manage technology adoption. We show that simple incentive plans, even ones that only provide bonuses for selection of standard technology or only provide penalties for non-standard selections suffice. Further, it is even possible to devise incentive plans which have zero expected costs to users and organizations and yet induce the users to pick common systems. We also examine technology adoption with communication between managers and users.

Abstract:
Balancing the amount of advertising and content affects the
profitability of the web site and its attractiveness to potential visitors. This tradeoff is modeled as a control problem for a web site manager who is maximizing the net present value of cash flows by controlling the amount of advertising and content displayed on the web site over its life. The model is calibrated and justified using web site advertisement and audience data. A new measure of web site traffic is developed and it is statistically significant in explaining the market value of firms that own advertising supported web sites.

Abstract:
Many successful open source projects have been developed by who were employed by firms but worked on the open source projects on the side due to economic incentives like career improvement benefits. Such side work may be a good thing for the employing firms too if they get some strategic value from the open source software and/ or if the productivity of the programmers on these projects improves due to learning by doing effects. However, the programmers may work more or less on these projects than what is best for the firms. To manage the programmers' effort the firms set appropriate employment policies and incentives. These policies and career concerns then together govern the programmers' effort allocation between the open source and proprietary projects. We examine this relationship using a variant of the principal agent model. We derive and characterize the optimal employment contracts and show that firms either offer a bonus for only one of the two projects or do not offer any bonuses. But if attractive alternate employment opportunities are available, they change their strategy and may offer bonuses for both projects simultaneously.

open source, business models, game theory, principal agent, programmer economic incentives

Abstract:
Application-based discrimination is common in telecommunications. Wireless carriers in the United States often charge consumers far more (per byte of traffic) for SMS text messages than they do for wireless surfing or voice calls. Many consumer advocates oppose such discriminatory pricing believing that it enriches carriers at the expense of consumers. The opposition to discrimination has grown significantly, and it has even prompted the United States Congress to question executives of some of the biggest carriers. With this ongoing debate on discrimination in mind, we compare two pricing regimes here. One regime involves pricing different applications differently just as wireless carriers in the US do. We name this discriminatory regime "application pricing." The other one involves pricing traffic (i.e., bytes transmitted) and giving each consumer the right to allocate the purchased traffic between applications according to his or her preferences. We term this neutral regime "traffic pricing." We show why the common wisdom, that discriminatory pricing across applications increases profits and harms consumers, may not always hold. We also show that such discrimination can increase social welfare.

Nonlinear Pricing, Quasi-bundling, Telecommunications Services, Net-neutrality

Abstract:
This paper highlights the importance of document workflow design when new workflow and electronic document management systems are adopted together. Merely replacing paper documents with electronic counterparts will not solve all the problems nor does it exploit fully the potential of this technology. We examine the support that the different document technologies take and the advantage of these technologies. Document composition, document technology, and routing of workflow are optimized to maximize the benefits to the organization.

Abstract:
Rapid technological developments and deregulation of the telecommunications industry have changed the way in which leading content providers distribute and price their goods and services. Instead of selling both content and access through proprietary networks, these firms are shifting their distribution channels to the Internet. Data customers can now select their Internet Service Providers to gain access to the Internet for a set monthly fee. The marginal charges for these Internet telecommunication services do not depend on distance, time and the content of the data. We study the economic and competitive impact of this vertical disintegration on the proprietary content providers, Internet Service Providers and the end consumers. We show that, despite the reduction in the scope of their service, the content providers may raise their prices to increase their profits. As a result, customers who are closer to the content provider's gateway may give up certain data services. On the other hand, new subscribers from remote locations will now enjoy the opportunity for additional data services because using the Internet will significantly reduce their telecommunication costs. Furthermore, as the number of access providers increases, their profits decrease and the fraction of customers who gain access to proprietary content increases. Some of the savings from the continuous reduction in telecommunication costs afforded by the Internet will be taken away by the proprietary data providers, who exploit their monopolistic market position. Consequently, a significant fraction of the potential customers may be priced out of the market.