【Title】Empirical Research in Operations Management   

【Speaker】Jun Li, Assistant Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan   

【Host】Dr. Simin Huang   

【Time】January 16, 2013(Wednesday), 15:00 – 17:00   

【Location】Room 510, Shun-de Building 

【Abstract】 

In this talk, I will discuss what makes a sensible and good empirical research, with particular emphasis on applications in operations management. I will first introduce the issue of endogeneity and identification. Prevalent in observational data, endogeneity issues pose significant challenges for causal inference. Various methods have been developed to tackle these problems, such as natural experiments, instrumental variables, panel data, difference-in-difference and regression discontinuity, etc. In the end, I will also briefly discuss structural models, which has been gaining popularity in operations management recently. 

【Brief bio】 

Jun Li's main research interests are empirical operations management and business analytics, with special emphases on subjects such as revenue management, pricing, consumer behaviors and economic and social networks. She has worked extensively with large-scale data, including transactions, pricing, inventory and capacity, consumer online search and click stream data in airline and hotel industries. 

She has won several best paper awards. Her work on strategic consumer behavior and its implications for airline revenue management strategies was the winner of 2011 MSOM Student Paper Competition, and third place in INFORMS Service Section Student Paper Competition and Columbia Business Initiatives Best Paper Award. Her dissertation on empirical studies of revenue management practices in air-travel and hospitality industry also won 2011 Penn Lauder CIBER Grant. Her work has also enjoyed coverage by Economists, New York Times and Forbes. 

Jun holds a Ph.D. in Operations Management from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from the Departmentof Industrial Engineering, Tsinghua University, China.