Alok Gupta | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | Information scientist, economic engineer, and academic |
Awards | Career Award, National Science Foundation LEO Award, Association for Information Systems |
Academic background | |
Education | B.Tech MS in Mine Electrical Systems PhD in Management Science and Information Systems |
Alma mater | Banaras Hindu University The Pennsylvania State University The University of Texas at Austin |
Thesis | A Real-Time Priority Pricing Approach for Resource Allocation in Multi-Service Class Data Communication Networks (1996) |
Doctoral advisor | Andrew B. Whinston Dale Stahl |
Academic work | |
Institutions | University of Connecticut University of Minnesota |
Alok Gupta is an American information scientist,economic engineer,and academic. He is the Professor of Information and Decision,a Senior Associate Dean of Faculty,Research and Administration,and Curtis L. Carlson School Wide Chair in Information Management in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. [1]
Gupta's research interests include the impact of technology on business model,digital transformation,data-driven decision-making,and the design and adoption of emerging technologies. He is the recipient of the Career award by the National Science Foundation (NSF), [2] and the LEO award by the Association for Information Science (AIS). [3]
Gupta is a Fellow of the Association for Information Science [4] and a Distinguished Fellow of INFORMS ISS. [5] He has held several editorial appointments throughout his career,including serving as the Editor-in-Chief and Senior Editor of Information Systems Research . [6] He also serves as an Associate Editor of the Brazilian Electronic Journal of Economics. [7]
Gupta enrolled at Banaras Hindu University where he completed a Bachelor of Technology in Mining Engineering from its Indian Institute of Technology in 1988. He then completed his master's degree in Mine Electrical Systems from the Pennsylvania State University in 1991. Later,he earned a Ph.D. in Management Science and Information Systems from the University of Texas Austin in 1996 under the supervision of Andrew B. Whinston and Dale Stahl. His thesis was titled,"A Real-Time Priority Pricing Approach for Resource Allocation in Multi-Service Class Data Communication Networks". [8]
Following his PhD Gupta began his academic career as a Visiting assistant professor in the Operations and Information Management Department at the University of Connecticut from 1996 to 1997 and became associate professor in 2001. He moved to the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota in 2001 and was promoted to Professor in 2005. Since 2005 he has been a professor in the Information and Decision department at the University of Minnesota. [9]
Gupta is the Publisher of MIS Quarterly and also holds an appointment as the Senior Associate Dean of Faculty in Research and Administration at the Carlson School of Management,the University of Minnesota. [9]
Gupta's research centers on digital innovation,business analytics,and strategic IT management. His particular focus lies in the areas of electronic commerce,online auction,and bidding strategies. He has authored over 80 articles. [10]
Gupta has done research in the area of Electronic commerce particularly focusing on consumer behavior, [11] risk prediction,pricing strategies, [12] and sales management. [13] During his early research,he proposed a stochastic equilibrium concept for a general mathematical model and demonstrated how it supports optimal congestion internet prices [14] and also provided a framework to manage resources in intranets using the concepts of electronic commerce. [15] In 2004,he designed a model named GIST to provide assistance in managing and designing the interactivity and content of customer-centric websites [16] and developed an economic model that captured consumer shopping channel choices based on the characteristics of the shopping channel and consumer risk profiles. [17] He highlighted the use of transparency strategy as an efficient way of enhancing internet-based selling and how this could help in increasing a firm's value on the internet. [18] In related research,he explored the impact of information technology on transparency,market information,and its structure and developed a theoretical framework to understand the process through which emerging dominance of transparent electronic markets can be inhibited. [19] He investigated the concept of smart markets as well,which utilizes computational tools to comprehend intricate trading environments and deliver real-time decision support to human decision-makers. [20] He also analyzed investment incentives for network infrastructure owners and explored two different pricing strategies:congestion-based negative externality pricing and the prevalent flat-rate pricing. [21] In his work titled,"Consumption and Performance:Understanding Longitudinal Dynamics of Recommender Systems via an Agent-Based Simulation Framework," he developed an agent-based modeling and computational simulation approach to investigate several factors that affect the temporal dynamics of recommender systems' performance. [22]
Another major area of Gupta's research interest is online auctions [23] and bidding strategies. He focused on analyzing [24] and designing auctions, [25] [26] understanding bidders' behavior, [27] [28] and investigating how these auctions serve as an emerging mercantile process. [29] He conducted research on multi-item online auctions,providing a comparative analysis between the Vickery version and the English version. His findings indicated that while the English version may dominate,the Vickery version exhibited higher allocative efficiency. [30] He then presented a simulation approach using the characteristics of the Yankee auction in order to optimize sellers' revenue. [31] Together with Ravi Bapna and Paulo Goes,he also suggested a cost-effective and risk-free simulation approach to investigate the decision behavior of bid makers and takers in web-based dynamic price-setting processes. [32] Additionally,he presented a novel feedback scheme,specifically designed for multiattribute auctions,which helped in providing protection of buyer's preference information from the supplier and the cost schedule of supplier from the buyer. [33] In 2009,he introduced the concept of auction overlap and examined how market-level factors such as price information,degree of overlap,auction format,and market supply influence the auction prices. [34]
Gupta's research group has also worked on the Continuous Combinatorial Auction (CoCoA) project. The project utilized design science principles to design,build,validate,and evaluate a combinatorial bidding environment that aimed to lower computational and cognitive hurdles in order to realize the potential of the mechanism. [35] Additionally,a key objective of the project was to promote acceptance and utilization of this complex mechanism by providing information and tools tailored to meet users' task requirements. [36] The designed artifacts were subsequently evaluated using economic [37] and behavioral measures. [38]
Gupta is known for his work in the field of information systems,including the collaborative effort titled "Designing next-generation high-speed auction markets". The focus of this research project was to create IT tools that enhance quick decision-making in time-sensitive and information-rich B2B auction markets. He and his team established a partnership with the Dutch Flower Auctions (DFA). They developed a stable taxonomy of bidding strategies that allow market operators to adapt and optimize the key auction parameters in real- time [39] and designed a flexible decision support framework that focuses on two models,namely prediction and optimization models. The results of the framework showed that it can help auctioneers make better tradeoffs between revenue and throughput (i.e.,market clearing speed) under different market conditions [40] and that it can increase the revenue and price stability. [41] In addition,they developed a Hybrid Auction Mechanism that mitigates market congestion which can speed up the market clearing process without affecting expected revenue,and thus effectively mitigate the congestion problem. [42]
During his time at Erasmus University,Gupta collaborated with the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) group on a project called "Artificial Intelligence in the Floriculture Chain" (iFlow). The project was designed to develop advanced analytical methods and tools that would advise floriculture auctioneers on achieving a balance between higher commercial revenues,lower logistical distribution costs,faster deliveries,and reduced carbon emissions in transportation. The group executed eight notable projects,including bidder heterogeneity and the development of a bidder typology based on actual bidding data, [43] multi-transaction auctioning,auctioning sequence,and role of winner bidder identification. [44]
In economics,a network effect is the phenomenon by which the value or utility a user derives from a good or service depends on the number of users of compatible products. Network effects are typically positive feedback systems,resulting in users deriving more and more value from a product as more users join the same network. The adoption of a product by an additional user can be broken into two effects:an increase in the value to all other users and also the enhancement of other non-users' motivation for using the product.
An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids,taking bids,and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition exist and are described in the section about different types. The branch of economic theory dealing with auction types and participants' behavior in auctions is called auction theory.
A Dutch auction is one of several similar types of auctions for buying or selling goods. Most commonly,it means an auction in which the auctioneer begins with a high asking price in the case of selling,and lowers it until some participant accepts the price,or it reaches a predetermined reserve price. This type of price auction is most commonly used for goods that are required to be sold quickly such as flowers,fresh produce,or tobacco. A Dutch auction has also been called a clock auction or open-outcry descending-price auction. This type of auction shows the advantage of speed since a sale never requires more than one bid. It is strategically similar to a first-price sealed-bid auction.
An online auction is an auction held over the internet and accessed by internet connected devices. Similar to in-person auctions,online auctions come in a variety of types,with different bidding and selling rules.
Wanda J. Orlikowski is a US-based organizational theorist and Information Systems researcher,and the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Information Technologies and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management,Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Bid rigging is a fraudulent scheme in a procurement action which enables companies to submit non-competitive bids. It can be performed by corrupt officials,by firms in an orchestrated act of collusion,or by officials and firms acting together. This form of collusion is illegal in most countries. It is a form of price fixing and market allocation,often practiced where contracts are determined by a call for bids,for example in the case of government construction contracts. The typical objective of bid rigging is to enable the "winning" party to obtain contracts at uncompetitive prices. The other parties are compensated in various ways,for example,by cash payments,or by being designated to be the "winning" bidder on other contracts,or by an arrangement where some parts of the successful bidder's contract will be subcontracted to them. In this way,they "share the spoils" among themselves. Bid rigging almost always results in economic harm to the agency which is seeking the bids,and to the public,who ultimately bear the costs as taxpayers or consumers.
Auction theory is a branch of applied economics that deals with how bidders act in auctions and researches how the features of auctions incentivise predictable outcomes. Auction theory is a tool used to inform the design of real-world auctions. Sellers use auction theory to raise higher revenues while allowing buyers to procure at a lower cost. The confluence of the price between the buyer and seller is an economic equilibrium. Auction theorists design rules for auctions to address issues that can lead to market failure. The design of these rulesets encourages optimal bidding strategies in a variety of informational settings. The 2020 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded to Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson "for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats."
A multiunit auction is an auction in which several homogeneous items are sold. The units can be sold each at the same price or at different prices.
A combinatorial auction is a type of smart market in which participants can place bids on combinations of discrete heterogeneous items,or “packages”,rather than individual items or continuous quantities. These packages can be also called lots and the whole auction a multi-lot auction. Combinatorial auctions are applicable when bidders have non-additive valuations on bundles of items,that is,they value combinations of items more or less than the sum of the valuations of individual elements of the combination.
A reverse auction is a type of auction in which the traditional roles of buyer and seller are reversed. Thus,there is one buyer and many potential sellers. In an ordinary auction also known as a forward auction,buyers compete to obtain goods or services by offering increasingly higher prices. In contrast,in a reverse auction,the sellers compete to obtain business from the buyer and prices will typically decrease as the sellers underbid each other.
Anindya Ghose is an Indian-born American academic,and the Heinz Riehl Chair Professor of Business at New York University's Stern School of Business and the director of the Masters of Business Analytics &AI program at NYU Stern. He is the author of TAP:Unlocking The Mobile Economy which is a double winner in the 2018 Axiom Business Book Awards and has been translated into five languages. He is a Leonard Stern Faculty Scholar with an MBA scholarship named after him. He has been a visiting professor at the Wharton School of Business. In 2014 he was named by the blog Poets and Quants as one of the "Top 40 Professors Under 40 Worldwide" and by Analytics Week as one of the "Top 200 Thought Leaders in Big Data and Business Analytics". In 2017 he was recognized by Thinkers50 as one of the Top 30 Management Thinkers globally most likely to shape the future of how organizations are managed and led in the next generation. Thinkers50 also bestowed the Distinguished Achievement Award Nomination for 'Digital Thinking' in 2017. In 2019,he was recognized by Web of Science citation Index in the top 1% of researchers selected for their significant influence in their fields over a 10-year period (2008-2018). He is a recipient of the prestigious INFORMS ISS Distinguished Fellow Award,given to recognize individuals who (i) have made outstanding intellectual contributions to the discipline with publications that have made a significant impact on theory,research,and practice and (ii) intellectual stewardship of the field as reflected in the mentoring of doctoral students and young researchers. His rise from assistant to full professor in 8.5 years at NYU Stern is widely regarded as one of the fastest in the history of the entire Information Systems,operations and Marketing academic disciplines in business schools globally.
John Leslie King is a W.W. Bishop Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. His main works deal with computerization in the public sector and municipalities,as well as other organizations. He has also worked on privacy issues and some of the primary computerization projects such as project SAGE. He is the author of Information systems:the state of the field,published by Wiley in 2006,which,according to WorldCat,is held in 126 libraries. He is a former editor-in-chief of Information Systems Research.
An ‘‘‘electronic bidding system ‘‘‘is an electronic bidding event according to defined negotiation rules (eAgreement). A buyer and two or more suppliers take part in this online event.
Business management tools are all the systems,applications,controls,calculating solutions,methodologies,etc. used by organizations to be able to cope with changing markets,ensure a competitive position in them and improve business performance.
The economics of digitization is the field of economics that studies how digitization,digitalisation and digital transformation affects markets and how digital data can be used to study economics. Digitization is the process by which technology lowers the costs of storing,sharing,and analyzing data. This has changed how consumers behave,how industrial activity is organized,and how governments operate. The economics of digitization exists as a distinct field of economics for three reasons:it studies a world that is digital,exponential and combinatorial. First,new economic models are needed because digital goods have very low or even zero marginal costs unlike most traditional goods,thus many traditional assumptions no longer hold in a digitized world. Second,the rate of improvement of computers,networks and other engines of digitization,is exponential,as reflected by Moore's Law. Third,digital goods can easily be combined and recombined,increasing their value not only via networks and platforms,but also novel combinations. Each of these effects is important individually,but together they have synergies and constitute a distinct economic landscape.
Maria Gini is an Italian and American Computer Scientist in artificial intelligence and robotics. She has considerable service to the computer science artificial intelligence community and for broadening participation in computing. She was Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group in Artificial Intelligence SIGAI from 2003 to 2010. She is currently a member of the CRA-W board.
A user review is a review conducted by any person who has access to the internet and publishes their experience to a review site or social media platform following product testing or the evaluation of a service. User reviews are commonly provided by consumers who volunteer to write the review,rather than professionals who are paid to evaluate the product or service. User reviews might be compared to professional nonprofit reviews from a consumer organization,or to promotional reviews from an advertiser or company marketing a product. Growth of social media platforms has enabled the facilitation of interaction between consumers after a review has been placed on online communities such as blogs,internet forums or other popular platforms.
Wolfgang Ketter is Chaired Professor of Information Systems for a Sustainable Society at the University of Cologne. and a prominent scientist in the application of artificial intelligence,machine learning and intelligent agents in the design of smart markets,including demand response mechanisms and in particular automated auctions. He is a co-founder of the open energy system platform Power TAC,an automated retail electricity trading platform that simulates the performance of retail markets in an increasingly prosumer- and renewable-energy-influenced electricity landscape.
Ann Majchrzak is an American academic. She is a Professor of Digital Innovation in the Department of Data Sciences and Operations within the USC Marshall School of Business. Majchrzak holds the USC Associates Chair in Business Administration.
Ravi Bapna is an Indian-born American data scientist,digital transformationalist,business academic,executive educator and speaker. He is the Curtis L. Carlson Chair in Business Analytics and Information Systems,the Associate Dean for Executive Education and the Academic Director of the Carlson Analytics Lab and the Analytics for Good Institute at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.