Joint SIS Research Seminar

ABOUT THE TALK(S)

Dr. Zhuolun LI

School of Information Systems Research Centre (SISRC), Singapore Management University

Abstract

As mobile broadband services have become more popular, it has become increasingly important for the telecom industry to understand the interaction between demand for its existing fixed broadband services and the new mobile broadband services. Their goal is to design innovative and value-maximizing pricing and segmentation strategies, and this research presentation suggests ways to achieve business, consumer and social insights for this context through the use of large-scale data analytics. It focuses on the consumption of fixed and mobile broadband services in Singapore during a five-year period following the entry of smartphones in 2010. We examined the cross-effects between fixed and mobile broadband services by tracking numerous households and subscription changes. We discovered event-driven patterns for fixed and mobile bandwidth changes, during a time when Singapore became the #1 smartphone-adopting nation in the world. This research explores the impact of smartphone adoption based on propensity score matching-based quasi-experiment. The results suggest that smartphone adoption had different short-term and long-term impacts on broadband services. To explore these further, a simulation that is based on the estimation results from an econometric model was developed, whose results form the basis for a number of managerial suggestions that are related to the changing role of customer demographics and broadband services choices over time, as well as an interpretation of how the entry of smartphones changes telecom services in Singapore.

Brief Biography

Dr. LI Zhuolun is a Research Fellow in the School of Information Systems at Singapore Management University. He graduated from South China University of Technology (BSc in Computer Science) and from National University of Singapore’s School of Computing (PhD in Information Systems). He recently worked in SMU’s Living Analytics Research Centre (LARC). His expertise is in advanced statistics, econometric modeling, data analytics and computational social science for the study of business, consumer and social insights problems in marketing, social media, and digital entertainment. His research has been published in Transactions on Management Information Systems (ACM TMIS) and the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). He also has presented his research at the Workshop on Information Systems and Economics (WISE), and in numerous university seminars. His newest article is forthcoming in the 2017 Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science in January 2017 in a mini-track on the Impacts of IT on Consumer Activities and Business Operations.

Assistant Professor Anirban MUKHERJEE

Marketing Department, Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University

Abstract

In this study, we undertake a comprehensive empirical audit of a pioneering crowdsourcing website, Threadless.com. Threadless.com solicits designs from a community of amateurs and independent professionals, sources feedback from the community on the submitted designs, and then retails selected designs. Our study examines a carefully collected, novel, large scale dataset of over 100 million ratings, from over 500,000 users, relating to over 150,000 designs, submitted by over 40,000 designers, on Threadless. We focus on two questions. First, what is the conventional wisdom relating to crowdsourcing success—what factors influence the selection of designs by Threadless? Second, does the conventional wisdom stand up to scrutiny, and can these factors be predictably and systematically linked to commercial success? We find evidence of a substantive difference between the selection criteria of Threadless.com and the findings from our empirical analysis. We will discuss the implications of these differences for designers and firms seeking to ride the crowdsourcing tide.

Brief Biography

Prof. Mukherjee is a graduate of Cornell University, with a B.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering (2003), and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Marketing from the Johnson Graduate School of Management (2008, 2009). He is an expert in quantitative and computational marketing: his research develops and applies cutting-edge empirical methods to examine substantively important marketing phenomena. When, how, and why do consumers change? This question underlies Prof. Mukherjee's research.

His doctoral dissertation, which led to a publication in the Journal of Marketing Research, developed novel structural econometric models of demand and competition to measure seasonality and the dynamic release timing game in post-theatrical movie demand. His research has since examined the impact of the macro-economy on consumers, firms, and financial markets. For example, in research that was the recipient of the best paper award (overall, and in the marketing analytics track) at the 2015 Australia & New Zealand Marketing Academy, he studies the impact of macroeconomic growth on product attribute preferences, and thus on brand and product shares. In a related project, he examined the impact of the macroeconomic environment on the demand for Bollywood movies in India. And in another project, he is exploring whether private label shares in 68 countries and 59 categories show signs of a global convergence. Last, in a new stream of research, he is studying crowdsourcing, the mass collaboration among firms, designers, and consumers. Specifically, he is looking at a novel, large-scale dataset of over 150 million ratings from over 500,000 users on over 150,000 designs, from over 40,000 designers and related to over 10 million transactions on Threadless.com.

Professor Eric K. CLEMONS

Operations, Information and Decision Management, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

We all want to keep the internet as open, as flexible, as innovative, and as valuable as possible. And many of us assume that this means the net should be subject to no regulation at all. This argues for letting innovators, entrepreneurs, and investors try as many things as possible, as quickly as possible. It argues for letting markets sort things out. In its most orthodox form, this argues that any attempt to outthink and outsmart the markets is unnecessary. Worse, any attempt to outthink the markets will create significant delay in innovation, perhaps allowing the innovator’s advantage to shift to looser regulatory environments overseas, while adding no meaningful or necessary forms of protection for consumers.

And yet most of us can agree that some form of regulation of online platforms is appropriate. Should we permit Airbnb to flourish because it is economically efficient to allow the owners of properties to find their most economically valuable use? If it is more profitable for building owners to refuse to renew the leases for some apartment residents in San Francisco and to convert their properties into full-time Airbnb rentals, should we permit it without question? If the residents object to being evicted from their apartments rather than having their leases renewed, or their neighbors object to having strangers and transients in an apartment building so that their home feels like a hotel, should we protect residents instead of property owners? If hotel operators argue that owners who rent through Airbnb have an unfair advantage because they pay fewer taxes, have fewer regulations on safety, or can locate in residential neighborhoods where hotels cannot, should we impose greater restrictions on Airbnb to level the playing field? Who would really benefit from these additional laws and regulations and how do you balance competing interests? How would you decide on the appropriate guidelines for regulators to follow?

If taxi and limo drivers object to Uber Black should we care? If Uber Black is more efficient than a limo company because of its technology, is that enough reason to endorse Uber? Is there any legitimate basis for an objection to Uber Black? What about the other forms of Uber, which compete more directly with taxis throughout the day? Should Uber Taxi be subject to all of the same regulations as traditional taxi drivers? Who would really benefit from these additional laws and regulations and how do you balance competing interests? How would you decide on the appropriate guidelines for regulators to follow? We don’t yet know where regulators should draw the line when regulating online platforms.

Brief Biography

Eric K. Clemons is Professor of Operations Information and Decisions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His research for the past 30 years has involved the systematic study of the transformational effects of information on the strategy and practice of business. He was among the first to study online global securities trading (1986), business process outsourcing (1991), the abuse of power in computer search systems (1991), channel conflict and successful and unsuccessful areas for the introduction of eCommerce (1996), and the effect of information on product proliferation and the transformation of consumer behavior in these new marketplaces (1996). He has worked in areas with the most senior executives in areas as diverse as international finance and global counter terrorism, to craft brewing and marketing of consumer packaged goods. More recently, he has begun studying privacy and the challenges of applying current antitrust law to online business models. His most recent project is integrating three decades of study into a single volume “New Patterns of Power and Profit: A Guide to the Information Age.”

Dr. Clemons is the founder and project director for the Wharton School’s Sponsored Research Project on Information: Strategy and Economics within the Program for Global Strategy and Knowledge Intensive Organizations. His education includes an S.B. in Physics from MIT, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University. He has held appointments at Wharton, the Harvard Business School, the Johnson School of Management at Cornell, the Engineering College at Cornell, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Peking University Law School, and the Desautels Centre at the Rotman School of the University of Toronto. He has published over 100 scholarly articles and regularly publishes online in Huffington Post, Business Insider, and Tech Crunch.