News Releases

CATONSVILLE, MD, August 3, 2020 – If you’ve ever taken advantage of a nice discount thanks to a promotion from Groupon or LivingSocial, you’ve tapped the power of the daily deal market yourself. You, the consumer, benefited from the prior bargaining that took place between that big online platform and the merchant, resulting in a lower price for you.

CATONSVILLE, MD, July 27, 2019 – There are conflicting predictions on the relationship between worker safety and organization survival. New research in the INFORMS journal Management Science finds organizations that provide a safe workplace have a significantly lower chance of survival because it costs to be safe.

CATONSVILLE, MD, July 13, 2020 – New research has found that there is a strong link between the visual portrayal of a brand in online imagery created by consumers and the larger brand perceptions.  

CATONSVILLE, MD – INFORMS, the leading association for operations research and analytics professionals, announced today that Elena Gerstmann, Ph.D., FASAE, CAE, has been named Executive Director effective July 27.

CATONSVILLE, MD, June 23, 2020 – The weight loss industry in the United States is vast and generates about $20 billion each year from over 100 million dieters. Commercial weight loss programs design customer-focused program policies to shape and optimize satisfaction and development. These two metrics are tied to how well a program does and the success of the customers in that program. New research in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science finds one key to success is making sure you have the right role model for dieters.

CATONSVILLE, MD, June 18, 2019 – Many people are using COVID-19 quarantine to get projects done at home, meaning plenty of online shopping for tools and supplies. But do you buy blind? Research shows 97% of consumers consult product reviews before making a purchase. Fake reviews are a significant threat for online review portals and product search engines given the potential for damage to consumer trust. Little is known about what review portals should do with fraudulent reviews after detecting them. 

CATONSVILLE, MD, June 8, 2020 – It’s not uncommon for U.S. pharmaceutical companies to pay medical doctors to promote their medications. Questions over possible conflicts of interest have led to introduction of laws that require payment disclosure so that the public can see which pharmaceutical companies are paying which doctors.

CATONSVILLE, MD, May 6, 2020 – New research to be published in the INFORMS journal Management Science has found popular rideshare platforms exhibit racial and other biases that penalize under-represented minorities and others seeking to use their services.

CATONSVILLE, MD, April 29, 2020 – Job performance has long been understood to be the primary equalizing factor affecting promotions for men and women in the workplace, but research shows, women don’t gain as much from the same performance improvements as men do. New research in the INFORMS journal Information Systems Research shows training plays an important part in promotions for women in the field of information technology.

CATONSVILLE, MD, April 23, 2020 – Businesses don’t typically disclose information to consumers on how much it costs to produce a product. However, new research in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science provides evidence that doing so can increase consumers’ purchase interest by more than 20%.