Browsing by Author "Dexter, Albert S."
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Item Open Access Added Value and Pricing with Information Technology(MIS Quarterly, 1995-12) Nault, Barrie R; Dexter, Albert S.The extent to which the added value to customers from a supplier's application of information technology is manifested through premium prices of a traded good is evaluated. It is demonstrated that IT can add value to an otherwise undifferentiated good, and it is shown how these benefits accrue to customers from the adoption of IT. Analyzing a case in which the traded good is a homogeneous commodity - commercial fueling - it is shown that the critical impacts of IT are convenience and control - that is, convenience that provides improved access to fuel and control that reduces problems of delegating purchasing authority for the customer. The value of this additional service is exhibited in premium prices customers are willing to pay for the IT-enhanced traded good, relative to the same good without IT. Compared to the price without IT, statistical analysis of the supplier's pricing history demonstrates that the application of IT to commercial fuel yielded price premiums of between 5% and 12% of the retail fuel price.Item Open Access Adoption, Transfers and Incentives in a Franchise Network with Positive Externalities(INFORMS, 1994) Nault, Barrie R; Dexter, Albert S.Franchising arrangements that allow franchisees with exclusive territories to own their customers are studied. This permits franchisees to benefit from positive externalities in the franchise network through inter-franchise transfers based on the purchases by their customers at other franchises on the network. Using the structure of a single franchisor and many franchisees, its is shown that interfranchise transfers between franchisees and incentives for franchisee investment in the expansion of their customer base are critical both to the size and to the benefits derived from the franchise network. Specifically, it is found that when individual franchisees make investments in marketing effort to increase their customer base, the franchisor's setting of the inter-franchise transfer trades off the positive effects on network size with the negative effects of removing franchisee incentive for investment. This result is due to the fact that inter-franchise transfers encourage investment, use of the royalty and inter-franchise transfer directly dissipates franchisee profits, and indirectly dissipates franchisee profits through less than universal adoption, thereby causing franchisees to under invest. As compared to traditional franchise systems, however, use of the inter-franchise transfer results in franchises making greater investments than they otherwise would.Item Open Access Agent-Intermediated Electronic Markets in International Freight Transportation(Elsevier, 2006-05) Nault, Barrie R; Dexter, Albert S.In many industries, agent-intermediated markets are inefficient because information about latent demand and supply never gets to market. We demonstrate how information technology (IT) in the form of an agent-intermediated electronic market (EM) alleviates this problem by enhancing the agent-as-market-maker using the international freight transportation industry as an example. We find that an EM increases agent participation and investment thereby increasing demand and supply. Because of tradeoffs between incentives for investment, the EM chooses a profit allocation between agents resulting in limited agent participation. In addition, when price depends on demand and supply balances, price and volume in the market can increase simultaneously.Item Open Access Electronic Communication Innovations: Overcoming Adoption Resistance(Springer, 1998-04) Nault, Barrie R; Dexter, Albert S.; Wolfe, RichardCustomers often resist the adoption of electronic communication innovations offered by suppliers because of customer adoption costs. In addition to tangible adoption costs, for example the purchase of new technology, there are intangible costs, often related to organizational inertia and behavioral resistance. We study electronic communication innovations that aid transactions of a marketed good between suppliers and customers, and show how suppliers can encourage innovation adoption. This encouragement includes not only the price of the marketed good but also the design of the innovation and innovation support given to customers. We argue that, first, innovation support given to customers by suppliers to facili- tate adoption compensates for customers’ adoption costs. Second, because customers tradeoff adoption benefits with the price of the marketed good, the impact of innovation design on adoption benefits counterbalances changes in the price of the marketed good.Item Open Access Freely Determined Versus Regulated Prices: Implications for the Link Between Money and Inflation(Wiley, 1993-05) Nault, Barrie R; Dexter, Albert S.; Levi, Maurice D.This paper explores the importance for the measured link between money and inflation of measuring inflation from indices that include prices that, by virtue of being regulated, are unlikely to respond systematically to the forces of supply and demand. 1 The inclusion of regulated prices for such items as property taxes, telephone and postal charges, vehicle registration, and public transportation means that even if supply and demand are systematically related to money, the measured overall rate of inflation may not be. Certainly, it would seem reasonable to believe that the nature of the setting and subsequent maintenance of regulated prices would result in them responding differently market forces that might themselves be affected by money, than would relatively unfettered prices such as those of many food items, furniture, insurance, household repairs, and automobile servicing. Indeed, it would seem reasonable to believe that the link between money and freely determined market prices would be more systematic than that between money and regulated prices, a belief that our results strongly confirm.Item Open Access International Trade and the Connection Between Excess Demand and Inflation(Wiley, 2005-09) Nault, Barrie R; Dexter, Albert S.; Levi, Maurice D.This paper demonstrates that globalization, taking the form of a higher import component of consumption and a larger export component of GDP, is the cause of the apparent breakdown in the relationship between excess demand and inflation. Within a parsimonious empirical framework, we show that increasing openness of the US economy is all that is needed to re-establish the relationship between inflation and capacity utilization. We also show that international trade has a significant separate influence on inflation, and is important for identifying a Phillips curve relationship between unemployment and inflation.Item Open Access Interorganizational Information Systems in Industrial Markets(Idea Group Publishing (IGI Global: International Publications), 1992-04) Nault, Barrie R; Dexter, Albert S.The impact of Interorganizational Information Systems (IOS) on industrial markets is complex because of multiple individual effects. We separate the impact into three effects: value added to the marketed good, buyer IOS adoption costs, and less volume sensitive supplier costs. We conclude the first and last of these effects explain marketed good premiums and discounts found in practice. The presence of buyer adoption costs also reveals why successful IOS always involves additional effort from suppliers. Because preemption is at the heart of IOS launch decisions, IOS introductions are found to occur early, and must be followed up by improved versions.Item Open Access Membership and Incentives in Network Alliances(IEEE, 2006-05) Nault, Barrie R; Dexter, Albert S.We propose a general and precise model of a network alliance that addresses both the role of membership and the role of incentives in the coordination of actions and interactions of network alliance members. Using examples in such disparate industries as professional engineering, accounting services, and commercial fueling as the basis of our model, we show that a commission fee chosen by the network provider can be combined with a classical exclusivity agreement-which does not restrict where members recruit customers, while at the same time protecting the members' locations where customers are served-to motivate increases in member investment and, consequently, in network profits. We also show that the most profitable network size emerges naturally. That is, the most profitable network size restricts membership, and emerges as a consequence of the exclusivity agreement and the setting of the commission fee. Our results require that members' investments are more valuable with increases in other members' investments, that prospective members are sufficiently different that there is an adequate range in the business potential of members, and that the effect of other members' investments on a given member's business potential is moderately low.Item Open Access Producing Synergy Innovation, IT and Productivity(Wiley, 2013-06) Nault, Barrie R; Kleis, Landon; Dexter, Albert S.Bringing innovations to market is critical to industrial progress and economic growth. We explore the potential for information technology (IT) to enable innovations, and thus improve productivity. We hypothesize that a knowledge stock of process-oriented research and development (R&D) increases total factor productivity growth by leveraging traditional forms of capital and labor, and further enhances the ability of IT capital to increase productivity. We estimate these relationships using two broad panels of U.S. industries covering the periods 1987–1998 and 1998–2005. The results indicate qualified support for a synergistic effect of R&D and IT investment in both periods.Item Open Access Sticky Prices: The Impact of Regulation(Elsevier, 2002-07) Nault, Barrie R; Dexter, Albert S.; Levi, Maurice D.This paper finds that approximately one-third of the items in the CPI are governed by price regulations that can slow and add noise to the response of prices to changes in cost or demand conditions. Consequently, regulation is a possible partial explanation of sticky prices in the overall rate of inflation, and delayed response to changes in the money supply. A survey is used to decompose the CPI into freely determined and regulated sub-components. Evidence is provided that prices in the regulated sector of the economy respond approximately two quarters after prices in the freely determined sector, thereby contributing a source of stickiness in overall inflation and in the response of inflation to monetary policy.Item Open Access Support Strategies to Foster Adoption of Interorganizational Innovations(IEEE, 1997-11) Nault, Barrie R; Dexter, Albert S.; Wolfe, Richard A.The authors develop strategies that suppliers can use to foster the adoption of interorganizational information systems innovations, The strategies focus on adoption support to overcome innovation adoption barriers, accounting for the effect of the innovation on ongoing supplier-customer transactions. Modeling a dimension of the customer (organizational innovativeness) and a dimension of the innovation (radicalness) they derive optimal supplier strategies for when the supplier can differentiate individual customer innovativeness and when it cannot. In the former case, knowledge of individual customer innovativeness results in a triage model-some customers adopt without support, some require support to adopt, and some do not adopt and should not be supported. A lack of knowledge of customer innovativeness results in an undifferentiated strategy directed at all customers. Knowledge of customer innovativeness increases overall adoption and supplier profits and lowers adoption support to those customers that receive support in both cases