讲座题目：Channel Strategy for Manufacturers in thePresence of Service Freeriders

讲座时间：2019年5月9日12:30-14:00

讲座地点：主教615会议室

演讲人：Jing Chen, Ph.D.，Professor of Rowe School of Business, Dalhousie University, Canada

Abstract:We examinethe case of a manufacturer that must decide whether to sell its productdirectly and/or indirectly through an independent retailer, and both themanufacturer and the retailer must decide on the level of service effort theywill provide. When customers are dissatisfied with a product, they will make anextra trip to return that product. Sales service improves customers’satisfaction with a product and reduces customer returns; however, providingthat service may be costly for the seller, and not all service leads to immediatesales. In particular, when a channel provides a high level of service, somecustomers may first visit this channel’s store to take advantage of theservice, only to turn around and buy the product from a cheaper channel(freeriding). This paper examines the impact of customers’ freeriding behavioron a manufacturer’s channel strategy. We find that the cost bearer offreeriding (i.e., the firm on which the customers freeride) can be better off,while, at the same time, the benefiter of freeriding (i.e., the firm thefreeriding customers purchase the product from) can be worse off when customerscan freeride. We also find that when customers can freeride, even though theyhave the flexibility of choosing where to buy after enjoying service, totaldemand may be smaller.

Biography: Jing Chenis a Professor and Willaim A. Black Chair of theRowe School of Business at Dalhousie University. She received her Ph.D. fromthe Richard Ivey School of Business, the University of Western Ontario in 2008.Her research interests focus on competitive channel and supply chainmanagement, interface between operations management and marketing, and revenuemanagement. She has published more than 40 articles inEuropean Journal ofOperational Research, Journal of Retailing, Transportation Research Part E: Logisticsand Transportation Review, Omega,and other journals. She has been servedas an associate editor forInternational Transaction in Operational Researchsince 2013, and as a guest editor forInternational Transaction inOperational Research, Annals of Operations Research, and International Journalof Production Research.