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Enhancing the Value Chain: Three Essays Investigating Financial and Customer Flows

Luo, Jing (2022) Enhancing the Value Chain: Three Essays Investigating Financial and Customer Flows. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

This dissertation investigates special mechanisms for enhancing the value chain from both the supplier and customer perspectives. The first essay studies a new technology implementation to improve supply chain finance and hence reduce product costs. The second essay examines the costs associated with customers completing a queue before receiving goods and services. The third essay considers consumers' utilities in a queuing service system that they must travel to.

In the first essay of this thesis, we focus on the procurement, operations, and receivables stages of the supply chain and investigate how Blockchain Technology and deep-tier supply chain finance can enhance the supply chain value. Specifically, we explore three questions: (1) How can Blockchain Technology for Supply Chain Finance (BT-SCF) address the deep-tier suppliers’ financial predicament and reduce their financial costs? (2) Should a brand retailer (the focal company) and its supply chain implement BT-SCF? If so, what is the impact of the BT-SCF implementation on the financial performance of each supply chain member? (3) What are the critical factors that determine the success of the BT-SCF implementation in a supply chain? Our results show that with a proper discount rate setting for each supply chain member, BT-SCF implementation is able to improve the profitability of all supply chain stakeholders and create higher value for consumers.

In the second essay of this thesis, we focus on the customer of the supply chain to study the impact of the experienced wait and prospective wait in queuing systems on consumers' utilities. We design an incentivized online experiment to study two research questions: how do (i) the experience of wait and (ii) the characteristics of the prospective wait influence people’s completion costs in observable queues? We find that the wait experience induces subjects with negative affective attitudes towards waiting to exhibit greater completion costs for the remaining wait, while it increases commitment among subjects with positive attitudes. Results also show that, in contrast to the prediction of rational models, the anticipated queue length and service time of the residual queue affect individuals’ costs additively, not multiplicatively.

In the final essay of this thesis, we extend the value chain to customers who must travel to join the queue for services or products. Human-subject experiments are conducted to study the questions: (1) How do a customer’s utilities before and after the travel differ from each other? (2) If there exists a difference in utilities before and after the travel, what is the mechanism that drives the result? (3) Whether the information-sharing levels of a queue impact an individual's utility? We find that subjects have a higher valuation of a queuing service system before than after traveling when queues are fast and long, while in slow and short queues, there is partial support that people value it more after than before traveling.

Overall, this thesis mainly contributes to the literature at the interface of supply chain finance, new disruptive technologies (i.e., Blockchain Technology and IoT) in operations management, behavioral operations, and queuing systems.


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Details

Item Type: University of Pittsburgh ETD
Status: Unpublished
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Luo, Jingjil204@pitt.edujil204
ETD Committee:
TitleMemberEmail AddressPitt UsernameORCID
Committee ChairMirchandani, Prakashpmirchan@katz.pitt.edu
Committee MemberShang, Jennifershang@katz.pitt.edu
Committee MemberLinardi, Seralinardi@pitt.edu
Committee MemberValdes, Leonlvaldes@katz.pitt.edu
Committee MemberHamilton, Michaelmhamilton@katz.pitt.edu
Date: 22 August 2022
Date Type: Publication
Defense Date: 19 July 2022
Approval Date: 22 August 2022
Submission Date: 11 August 2022
Access Restriction: No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately.
Number of Pages: 132
Institution: University of Pittsburgh
Schools and Programs: Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business > Business Administration
Degree: PhD - Doctor of Philosophy
Thesis Type: Doctoral Dissertation
Refereed: Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords: Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Finance, Behavioral Operations Management, Queuing System
Date Deposited: 22 Aug 2022 11:41
Last Modified: 22 Aug 2022 11:41
URI: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/43585

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