This research explores the causes of dealer demand amplification leading to a high volume of seed returns in a typical agribusiness supply chain. Seed production occurs months in advance of grower demand, resulting in a limited supply of specific seeds. To hedge against shortages, dealers inflate orders. If demand materializes, dealers benefit from their inflationary behavior. If it does not, t...

This paper investigates a capacity planning strategy that collects commitments to purchase before the capacity decision and uses the acquired advance sales information to decide on the capacity. In particular, we study a profit-maximization model in which a manufacturer collects advance sales information periodically prior to the regular sales season for a capacity decision. Customer demand is ...

W introduce and analyze a model that explicitly considers the timing effect of intertemporal pricing— the concept, found in practice, that demand during a sale is increasing in the time since the last sale. We present structural results that characterize the interaction between the decision to hold a sale and the inventory-ordering decision. We show that the optimal inventory-ordering policy is...

We consider a general class of network revenue management problems in which multiple products are linked by various resource constraints. Demand is modeled as a multivariate Poisson process whose instantaneous rate at each point in time is determined by a vector of prices set by the decision maker. The objective is to price the products so as to maximize expected revenues over a finite sales ho...

This paper studies optimal sales force compensation plans in a multi-period moral-hazard model when the firm wants to implement high effort in every period but only obtains aggregate information on sales. The sales agent chooses effort each period after observing previous sales and his incentive responsiveness might change over time. The paper derives conditions under which a linear incentive s...

In supply chain co-opetition, firms simultaneously compete and co-operate in order to maximize their profits. We consider the nature of co-opetition between two firms: The product supplier invests in the technology to improve quality, and the purchasing firm (buyer) invests in selling effort to develop the market for the product before uncertainty in demand is resolved. We consider three differ...

Motivated by some recent cartels, this paper characterizes a stable collusive mechanism when firms’ prices and quantities are private information. An equilibrium is described in which firms truthfully report their sales and then make transfers based on these reports. Even though a higher sales report requires a higher transfer by a firm, the threat of a price war when the aggregate sales report...

This paper studies a dynamic model of perfectly competitive price posting under demand uncertainty. Firms must produce output in advance. After observing aggregate sales in prior periods, firms post prices for their unsold output. Consumers arrive at the market in random order, observe the posted prices, and either purchase at the lowest available price or delay their purchase decision. Every s...

In the current global market, organizations use many promotional tools to increase their sales. One such tool is sales teams’ initiatives or promotional policies, i.e., free gifts, discounts, packaging, etc. This phenomenon motivates the retailer/or buyer to order a large inventory lot so as to take full benefit of promotional policies. In view of this the present paper considers a two-warehous...