講題：Technology, Transparency and Strategic Decommoditization
講者：Dr. Robert J. Kauffman, Dartmouth College, USA; Huang-chi Lin(資管博士生 林皇吉), National Sun Yat-sen University
對象：管院所有老師及博士生
時間：2011/03/15 (二) 12:10
地點：中山大學管4112室
 
煩請欲出席者，至網址：http://ppt.cc/4oIT 填寫報名資料並於03月14日（一）中午前回覆，以便統計用餐人數
 
Abstract：Current research on firm-level information strategy in e-commerce emphasizes the extent to which firms are able to design and implement effective means to achieve customer intimacy, stable sales revenues, and attractive profit levels. In many industry settings, however, digital intermediaries have negatively impacted the ability of firms to own their customers, maintain control over their revenues and avoid the increasingly high fees paid to the middlemen. In this research, we will discuss the role that IT has played in shaping competition in air travel distribution, by supporting intermediated airline ticket sales by online travel agents (OTAs) supported by global distribution systems (GDSs). We will discuss how the capabilities of the digital intermediaries have led consumers to a focus on the prices of the airline tickets that they purchase, in lieu of the service capabilities of the airlines whose services they use. As a result, over time we have seen the 'commoditization' of air travel services prices. This has led to the erosion of the airlines' profits -- in addition to the problems they have had with escalating fuel prices, unstable demand and over-capacity. We will discuss several aspects of our empirical work in this industry using data sets on the order of 1,000,000 data points: (1) soon-to-be published results that analyze price elasticity of demand differences for the offline and online channels, and within the online channel for 'transparent' and 'opaque' OTAs; and (2) work-in-progress on 'strategic decommoditization' of air travel services by the airlines through the use of a la carte pricing and unbundling, as a means to fight back against the digital intermediaries. In addition, we will discuss our research practices for international collaboration involving the sponsorship of doctoral research in the context of a large sponsored project in the airline industry. Note: Our collaborators in this research include: Nelson Granados, Pepperdine University; Alok Gupta, University of Minnesota; and Hsiangchu Lai, National Sun Yat-sen University. The airline sponsors have requested anonymity.
 
Brief bios of the speakers：Robert J. Kauffman is currently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College. He has served in faculty positions previously at New York University, the University of Rochester, the University of Minnesota and Arizona State University. He holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University (M.S., Ph.D), Cornell University (M.A.), and the University of Colorado, Boulder (B.A). His research focuses on senior management issues that span the economics of IS, competitive strategy and technology, IT value, pricing and e-commerce, risk management, supply chain management, and IT services. His industry expertise is financial services, e-business, IT consulting, and air travel and hospitality management. He has served in numerous journal editorial positions and conference leadership roles. His research has been published in Management Science, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, the Journal of Management Information Systems, and the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and elsewhere. He spent his junior year in college in a study abroad program hosted by National Taiwan University and National Normal University in Taipei. Huang-chi Lin (林皇吉中山資管博士生) is currently a doctoral student in the College of Management at National Sun Yat-sen University. He hopes to complete his Ph.D.thesis on mechanism design and the effects of digital intermediaries in Internet-based selling in 2011. In 2009-2010, he spent one year at the W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, where he worked on research related to online group-buying in e-commerce, and marketing and technology strategy issues in the air travel industry. He research was published in Information Technology and Management in 2010, and in the Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science in 2009 and 2011. He currently services as the Editorial Assistant for the journal Electronic Commerce Research and Applications. 

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