INFORMS Releases

What can a pizza shop teach us about the dramatic shifts taking place in consumer marketing? Quite a lot, actually. New research that focused on pizza delivery has found that consumer impatience is now driving so much consumer decision-making that even location, price, and quality can take a back seat. While this study focused on pizza delivery, the study’s findings have ramifications for all business-to-consumer firms.

Emergency departments across the country face a common challenge: how to reduce long wait times without adding more beds, hiring more staff or expanding facilities. New research suggests one answer may be hiding in plain sight—making better decisions about where patients receive care.

As retailers increasingly embrace artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and autonomous vehicles, a new retail model is beginning to emerge: mobile stores that drive directly to customers instead of waiting for customers to come to them.

New research published in the INFORMS journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management finds that retailers operating fleets of mobile “stores on wheels” can outperform traditional fixed-location stores by continuously relocating to areas of highest demand while simultaneously learning where future demand is likely to occur.

Dropping standardized testing requirements may make admission to college more accessible for some, but it can also make it harder for universities to identify high-potential students, according to new research published in the INFORMS journal Management Science.

Local newspapers have long played a quiet but powerful role in corporate accountability: they scrutinize company behavior and give public visibility to good corporate citizenship. But as local newspapers continue to disappear, that accountability system weakens, and companies change how they approach corporate social responsibility (CSR).