Research Overview

I conduct empirical research to achieve a service’s strategic vision with aligned system designs and invent forecasting algorithms. My research is recognized by academic journals, received best paper and case awards, and covered by Kellogg Insights and Vanderbilt News. I have been invited frequently to present my research at academic institutions and review papers for top journals. My research has also received interest from a wide range of practitioners. I have solid research partnerships with firms in hospitality industries, service platforms, social media platforms, e-commerce, healthcare, and more. 

Research Area

I conduct empirical research to achieve a service’s strategic vision with aligned system designs and invent forecasting algorithms. My research is recognized by academic journals, received best paper and case awards, and covered by Kellogg Insights and Vanderbilt News. Figure 1 illustrates my research storyline with a detailed description following. [No.] refers to papers listed in my Research Progress below.

Research Area #1: Align Service Design with Strategic Service Vision

To ensure the alignment between a service system design and its corresponding service strategic vision, I use business analytics to close the knowledge gap by understanding key players in the service system. Based on the obtained knowledge, I propose operational improvement pathways, with much of my recent work emphasizing omnichannel service management. 
The seminal study in my research journey [3] inspires my vision that closing the knowledge gap -- understanding key players in a service system, is essential to align a service system with its strategic service vision. In this line of my work, I analyze behavior-level data to discover customers' preferences [3] and service providers' preferences [19], customers' reactions to changes in social events [17], service offerings [21], and user-interface design [23]. Moreover, I conduct industrial-level business analytics to understand markets' unmet needs and wants in senior care [7, 8] and restaurant [2]. For public legislation services, I analyze the regulated entities' reactions to new regulations and incentives [4, 9, 10, 11, 27]. An area I intentionally build in my work is "Behavioral Service Operations," where I link human behavior in service interactions with psychology insights such as humans' psychological comfort [19], perception bias [21], and cognitive limitations [23]. The ultimate goal of this research is that, once a service organization's strategic vision is achieved efficiently and cost-effectively with a leaner and aligned service system, social welfare can also be improved. My interests in social equality drive me to investigate how to promote social welfare in service systems, particularly for older adults [7, 8] and women [17, 28]. This line of work has won best paper awards in INFORMS Behavior OM 2020 (Runner Up), INFORMS Service Science 2021 (Finalist), POMS Behavior OM 2021 (Honorable Mention), and INFORMS Social Media Analytics 2021 (Finalist).

Within my interests in improving service system design, I emphasize the management of “Omnichannel Service.” Inspired by my seeding project [3], I understand that providing more customer engagement channels may not always benefit customers and service providers. To address service inconsistency between channels and customers’ traffic crossing over multiple channels, we need a holistic view of service channel management that I call “Omnichannel Service Management.” In this line of research, I propose two strategies — channel specialization and channel integration. In the channel specialization strategy, I suggest building dedicated service channels to serve specific customer segments with applications in payment channels [22] featuring the trendy Mobile Payment, online shopping channels [20] featuring the rising social-commerce mode, and call center channels [3]. In the channel integration strategy, I investigate different models of integration. A service provider can integrate its own channels more smoothly via standardization [1], operational synergy across adjacent service units [26] or using online nudging to smooth offline demand fluctuation [18]. A service provider can also integrate its own channel with a dedicated third-party channel to advance in technological upgrades [16, 24]. I also discuss under what conditions a service provider should partner with a dedicated third-party channel or a shared third-party channel with competitors [11]. This line of research is selected as finalists for IBM Service Science Best Paper Award 2019 and INFORMS TIMES (Technology, Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship) Award 2021 (Third-Place).

Research Area #2: Forecast

With my training in statistics and frequent conversations with industrial partners, I am also interested in developing business analytics methodologies to address pain points in real-world operations. In business analytics, I specialize in forecasting with statistical and machine learning approaches. I have developed prediction algorithms for traffic data transferring in complex networks [13,14] to facilitate routing and infrastructure planning for the Department of Energy and oil reserves [15]. I have invented demand forecasting algorithms for new products (i.e., products without historical sales) [5,5] and products with intermittent demand (which happens quite often in large-scale inventory systems) [29]. I have also invented a diagnosis model that can impute missing data simultaneously with prediction [25], which the partner hospital now employs.

Research List

Research Method: * Structural Modeling, ** Causal Inference, *** Forecasting, Statistics & Machine Learning

Appeared/Forthcoming

Top Business Journals
Service System Design
1. “Service Chains' Operational Strategies: Standardization or Customization? Evidence from the Nursing Home Industry,” with Lu Kong and Rohit Verma. 
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Accepted.** Link
        📰 Media Coverage: Vanderbilt Business Live April 20, 2022
2. “Analytics Applications and Strategies in the Restaurant Industry,” with Xiande Zhao and Morgan Swink.
Production and Operations Management, Appeared Online. Link
        📰 Media Coverage:  “Optimizing Data Collection is on the Table for the Restaurant Industry”  Vanderbilt News 2022. Link
3. “Understanding Customers’ Retrial in Call Centers: Preferences of Service Speed and Service Quality,” with Gad Allon and Achal Bassamboo.
​Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 24, no. 2 (2021):1002-1020. * Link       
        📰 Media Coverage:  “New Research Identifies Service Frameworks to Improve Customer Service without Breaking the Bank.” Vanderbilt News 2021. Link
4. “The Effect of Tightening Standards on Automakers’ Non-compliance,” with Sunil Chopra, and Yuche Chen.
Production and Operations Management 30.9 (2021): 3094-3115. ** Link
         📰 Media Coverage:  “What Volkswagen’s Emissions Scandal Can Teach Us about Why Companies Cheat.” Kellogg Insights 2017. Link
         📰 Media Coverage:  “Tightening Vehicle Emissions Standards Resulted in Higher Rates of Automaker Non-Compliance.” Vanderbilt News 2021. Link
Forecasting
5. “Forecasting Product Life Cycle Curves: Practical Approach and Empirical Analysis,” with Jason Acimovic, Francisco Erize, Douglas J. Thomas, and Jan A. Van Mieghem.
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 21, no. 1 (2018): 66-85. *** Link         
​         🎉 Finalist in the 2017 M&SOM Practice-based Competition.
         📰 Media Coverage:  "How to Predict Demand for Your New Product."  Kellogg Insights, 2017 Link​ 
         📰 Media Coverage:  "Launching New Tech? How Do You Make Data-driven Decisions Without Any Sales Data?" Vanderbilt News, 2018. Link
6. “Product Life Cycle Data Set: Raw and Cleaned Data of Weekly Orders for Personal Computers,” with Jason Acimovic, Francisco Erize, Douglas J. Thomas, and Jan A. Van Mieghem.
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 21, no. 1 (2018): 171-176. *** Link
Specialty Journals
Service System Design
7. “Caring for an Aging Population in a Post-Pandemic World: Emerging Trends in the U.S. Older Adult Care Industry,” with Lu Kong and Matthew Walsman.
Service Science 13.4 (2021): 258-274. *** Link
         📰 Media Coverage:  “ Research Snapshot: COVID-19 is the disruptive moment the older adult care industry has been waiting for.” Vanderbilt News 2021. Link
​8. “Fostering Older Adult Care Experiences to Maximize Well-Being Outcomes: A Conceptual Framework,” with Sertan Kabadayi, Yuna S.H. Lee, Lydia Hanks, Matthew Walsman, and David Dobrzykowski.
Journal of Service Management 31, no. 5 (2020): 953-977. Link
9. “Equilibrium Fuel Supply and Carbon Credit Pricing under Market Competition and Environmental Regulations,” with Yuche Chen.
Applied Energy 236 (2019): 815-824. Link
10. “Technological Growth of Fuel Efficiency in European Automobile Market 1975–2015,” with Yuche Chen.
Energy Policy 98 (2016): 142-148. *** Link
11. “A Dynamic Programming Approach for Modeling Low-carbon Fuel Technology Adoption Considering Learning-by-doing Effect,” with Yuche Chen, Yunteng Zhang, Yueyue Fan, and Jianyou Zhao.
Applied Energy 185 (2017): 825-835. Link
12. “Strategic Choice of Open and Closed Platforms: Game Theory Analysis of Downstream Vendors Behavior based on Demand and Cost Advantages.” with Guangzhen Guo, Y. Zhang. 
China Industrial Economics 3 (2017): 64-82. Link
Forecasting
13. “Best Predictive Generalized Linear Mixed Model with Predictive Lasso for High-speed Network Data Analysis,” With Jaesik Choi, Alex Sim, and Jiming Jiang.
International Journal of Statistics and Probability 4, no. 2 (2015): 132. *** Link
14. “Estimating and Forecasting Network Traffic Performance based on Statistical Patterns Observed in SNMP Data,” with Alex Sim, Demetris Antoniades, and Constantine Dovrolis.
Proceedings of International Workshop on Machine Learning and Data Mining in Pattern Recognition, pp. 601-615. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2013. *** Link
15. “Regional Reserves Growth Shows Decline in Annual Rate of Increase,” with Gongming Yu and Yijun Wang.
Oil & Gas Journal 114, no. 7 (2016): 40-44. *** Link
Case Studies
Jianqiang Hu and Kejia Hu. Case Study on Jointown Pharmaceutical Group Co Ltd, China. 
         🎉 Awarded as the National Top 100 MBA Case Studies, China, 2011. 

Under Review/Revision

Top Business Journals
Service System Design
15. “Delegation with Technology Migration: An Empirical Analysis of Mobile Virtual Network Operators,” with Fan Zou, Yan Dong, and Sriram Venkataraman.
Management Science, ​Major Revision.** Link
16. “How Women Promote Greater Social Responsibility on Social Media,” with Li Xiang and Huibin Du.
MIS Quarterly, Major Revision. **       
        🎉2021 INFORMS Social Media Analytics Section Best Student Paper Award Finalist
17. “Promotional Design for Small Businesses: the Operational Value of Online Deals,” with Simin Li and Martin Lariviere.
Management Science, Major Revision. * Link
         🎉2019 IBM Service Science Section Best Student Paper Competition Finalist
19. “To What Extent Do Workers’ Preferences Matter?” with Zhenzhen Jia, Jianqiang Hu, and Vishal Ahuja.
Management Science, Resubmitted. ** Link
         🎉2021 INFORMS Service Science Best Cluster Paper Award Finalist
         🎉2021 POMS College of Behavior OM Junior Scholar Paper — Honorable Mention
         🎉2020 INFORMS Best Working Paper Award Behavioral OM — Runner Up​
20. “WeStore or AppStore: Customer Behavior Differences in Mobile Apps and Social Commerce,” with Nil Karacaoglu.
Production and Operations Management, Major Revision. * Link
         🎉2021 INFORMS TIMES Best Working Paper Third Place
21. “The Psychology of Virtual Queue: When Waiting Becomes Less Like Waiting,” with Xun Xu and Leo Ao.
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Major Revision. ** Link
22. “The Cardless and Cashless Future: the Rise of Mobile Payment,” with Shuai Ling, and Sriram Venkataraman.
Information Systems Research, Under Review. * Link
23. “More or Less: How Information Richness Affects Our Choice Consistency,” with Iris Wang
Management Science, Under Review. ***
24. “How Operational Complexity Drives Inventory Record Inaccuracy: Empirical Evidence from Cross-border E-commerce,” with Ting Wang, Stanley Lim, Yun Fong Lim, and Yugang Yu. Management Science, Under Review. ***
Forecasting
​25. “Simultaneous Imputation and Prediction with High-dimensional Data (SIP-HD): A Deep Learning Model for Disease Diagnosis,” with Zhenzhen Jia, Jianqiang Hu, Qingchen Wang, and Ning Zhang. 
Journal of Operations Management, Under Review. *** 

Working Papers
Service System Design
​26. “The Acquisition Performance of Multi-unit Service Firms: Achieving Operational Synergy through Geographic Clustering,” with Susan Lu and Lauren Lu. **
27. “The Good and Evil Inside: From Within-organization Features to the Social-orientation of Innovations,” with Mark Cohen. **
Forecasting
28.“Intermittent Demand Forecasting,” with Feng Liu, Teng Lian, and Jianqiang Hu. ***
Copyright 2021 Kejia Hu, all rights reserved.