At any given time, I have a half dozen major research projects underway. Currently, my time is focused on:
- Information Technology, Productivity and Organization: Examining how complementary organizational practices affect the value of IT investments. Also working on measuring the size and economic impact of information technology-related intangible assets (collaborators: Erik Brynjolfsson, Adam Saunders, Sonny Tambe, David Fitoussi, and folks at McKinsey)
- Information Technology Externalities: This project examines the evidence for spillovers between firms that invest in IT and other firms that are linked to them in some way (supply chain, industry competition, labor mobility). We are especially interested in characterizing how IT-related process knowledge flows among firms through worker mobility, and the implications of the mobility of IT workers more generally. This work is a collaboration between Wharton, an online job service provider and a social networking company. (collaborators: Sonny Tambe)
- Economics of the Information Technology Labor Force. Using the employee data derived from our externalities work as well as additional survey and archival data sources we are studying various issues relating to the demand for IT labor. Projects include understanding the extent of IT-related offshoring, and the effects of the H1-B visa program on wages and demand for US-based IT labor. (collaborators: Sonny Tambe)
- Value of Information Technology Investments in Hospitals: This project involves the empirical analysis of hospital performance and IT investment to better understand the benefits of investing in healthcare IT in US Hospitals. This work is a collaboration between Wharton and Pricewaterhousecoopers consulting (collaborators: Nick Beard, Mike Housman, Kinga Elo)
- Value of Information Technology Investments in Nursing Homes: I am working to develop the "business case" for investing in healthcare IT in nursing homes. This is part of a broader project studying the state sponsored implementation of an electronic health records and workflow automation system in approximately 17 New York State Nursing Homes that is being studied by a broad project team including researchers from Cornell and NYU. Other research teams are studying the effect of the system on nursing home residents and the nursing home staff. This project is supported by the Quality of Care Oversight Committee (QCOC) and the 1199 SEIU. Funding for my portion of the project was provided by the Commonwealth Fund (collaborators: Sonny Tambe)
- Economics and Operational Implications of Online Customer Self-Service: This was originally an NSF funded project (now completed) to better understand the use and economic impact of self-service technology, especially Internet self-service. We are especially interested in the role of customer co-production ability ("customer efficiency") and the impact of online self-service channels on the demand for other service channels. We are currently extending our work to consider how self-service technology affects investments in bank branches, and the effects of self-service technology and pricing and competition (collaborators: Mei Xue, Pei-Yu Chen, Patrick Harker, Bin Gu)
- Product Variety and Information Technology: This work examines how information technology facilitates greater product variety and the implications for operations, performance and strategy. Our novel contribution here is a firm-level measure of variety using trademark counts (collaborators: Gordon Gao)
- Recommender Systems: We have been working to better understand the role recommender systems play in pricing and competition, especially for experience goods and repeat purchase products. A key theme of this work is how differences in consumer preferences can contribute to random variation or systematic bias in online review systems, and how this bias can affect price competition and consumer behavior. (collaborators: Xinxin Li)