Bio
Laurens Debo is a Professor of Operations Management at Tuck. Previously, he was on the faculty of the Tepper School of Business of Carnegie Mellon University and the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. Professor Debo’s research focuses on the behavior of consumers and providers in different service settings. On the consumer side, he investigates how strategic consumer behavior shapes the demand for services. On the supply side, he studies the management of “discretionary services,” whose value to the consumer increases with the actual service time. His research has appeared in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Management Science, Operations Research and Production and Operations Management, among other journals. A part of his research has been funded by the NSF. He is an associate editor for Management Science, Manufacturing & Services Operations Management and Operations Research, a senior editor for Production and Operations Management, and serves on the editorial board of Service Science.
Current Research Topics
Operations management, with a special interest in the economics-operations interface, queuing games and global supply chain management.
Professional Activities
Academic positions
- Professor of Operations Management, Tuck School, 2022–present
- Professor of Business Administration, Tuck School, 2019–2022
- Associate Professor of Business Administration, Tuck School, 2015–19
- Visiting Associate Professor of Business Administration, Tuck School, 2014–15
- Associate Professor of Operations Management, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, 2010–15
- Assistant Professor of Operations Management, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, 2008–10
- Assistant Professor of Operations Management, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, 2003–08
- Instructor, Operations Management and Manufacturing, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, 2003–03
Editorial positions
- Associate Editor, Stochastic Modeling Area, Operations Research
- Associate Editor: Department of Operations Management, Management Science; Manufacturing Services and Operations Management; Stochastic Modeling Area, Operations Research; Department of Service Operations Engineering, IIE Transactions
- Senior Editor, Department of Global Operations Strategy, Production and Operations Management
- Editorial Board, Service Science
- Referee: Management Science, Manufacturing Services and Operations Management, Operations Research, Production and Operations Management
Awards
- NSF grant (CMMI-1301234): “Collaborative Research: The Positive Role of Queues on Customer Value Perception: Mathematical Models and Laboratory Experiments,” with S. Iravani and M. Kremer, $71,843 (total award: $425,000), 2013
- Finalist for Best Paper Award from Manufacturing and Services Management, for the paper: “Joining Longer Queues: Information Externalities in Queue Choice,” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 2012
- Distinguished Associate Editor Award for Management Science, 2012
- Meritorious Service Award for Management Science, 2009 and 2010
- Meritorious Service Award for Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016
- Best Theoretical/Empirical Research Award at the DSI 2008 Annual Meeting for “Buy Now and Match Later: The Impact of Posterior Price Matching on Profit with Strategic Consumers” (with Guoming Lai and Katia Sycara)
- Advisor of Guoming Lai, who won the second prize of the MSOM 2008 best student paper competition with “Stock Market Pressure on Inventory Investment and Sales Reporting for Publicly Traded Firms”
- Junior Faculty Interest Group paper competition finalist (INFORMS, Seattle 2007) with S. Veeraraghavan for the paper “Joining Longer Queues: Information Externalities in Queue Choice”
Working Papers
- With G. van Ryzin, “Creating Sales with Stock-Outs” (formerly titled: “Consumer Search Behavior when the Product Quality is Uncertain”)
- With C. Jin, S. Iravani , M. Kremer and Seyed Iravani “Observational Learning with Large Choice Sets - Crowds, Contrarians, and Congestion”
- With C. Jin and S. Iravani, “Observational Learning in Large-Scale Congested Service Systems”
- With Ran I. Snitkvosky, "Tipping for Fast Service: The Role of a Social Norm”
- With S. Ansari, L. Zhonghao, S. Irvani and R. Shumsky, “Optimal Delay Messages,
- With S. Ansari, M. Ibanez, S. Iravani, S. Malik, “Under-Promising and Over-Delivering to Improve Patient Satisfaction at Emergency Departments: Evidence from a Field Experiment Providing Wait Information”
Selected Publications
- With L.B. Toktay and L.N. Van Wassenhove, “Market Segmentation and Technology Selection for Remanufacturable Products," Management Science, 51(8), 1193-1205, (2005)
- With L.B. Toktay and L.N. Van Wassenhove , “Life Cycle Dynamics for Portfolios with Remanufactured Products,” Production and Operations Management, 15(4), 498-513, (2006)
- With L.B. Toktay and L.N. Van Wassenhove, “Queuing for Expert Services," Management Science, 54(8), 1497-1512, (2008)
- With C. Li, “Second Sourcing vs. Sole Sourcing with Capacity Investment and Asymmetric Information,” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 11(9), 448-470, (2009)
- With S. Veraaraghavan, “Joining Longer Queues: Information Externalities in Queue Choice,” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 11(4), 543-562, (2009) (lead article, finalist for MSOM Best Paper Award, June 2012)
- With G. Lai and K. Sycara, “Sharing Inventory Risk in Supply Chain: the Implication of Financial Constraint” Omega, the International Journal of Management Science, 37 (1), 811-825, (2009)
- With G. Lai and K. Sycara, “Buy Now and Match Later: Impact of Posterior Price Matching on Profit with Strategic Consumers,” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 12(1), 33-55. “Erratum to: Buy Now and Match Later: Impact of Posterior Price Matching on Profit with Strategic Consumers,” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 12(2), 370, (2009)
- With C. Li, “Strategic Dynamic Sourcing from Competing Suppliers: The Value of Commitment” Naval Research Logistics, 56(6), 540-562, (2009)
- With J. Sun, S. Kekre and J. Xie, “Imitative Competition: Implications for Strategic Sourcing and Technology Transfer," Management Science, 56(3), 536-552, (2010)
- With Xiaofang Wang, Alan Scheller-Wolf and Stephen F. Smith, “Design and Analysis of Diagnostic Service Centers," Management Science, 56(11), 1873-1890, (2010) (lead article)
- With Guoming Lai and Lin Nan, “Manager Incentives for Channel Stuffing with Market-based Compensation," Management Science, 57(2), 332-346, (2010)
- With Veeraraghavan and “Herding in Queues with Waiting costs: Rationality and Regret,” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 13(3), 329-346.
- With C.A. Parlour and U. Rajan, “Signaling Quality via Long Queues,” Management Science,58(5), 876-891, (2012)
- With X. Wang, Alan Scheller-Wolf and Stephen F. Smith, “Service Design at Diagnostic Service Centers,” Naval Research Logistics, 59(8), 613-628, (2012)
- With S.K. Veeraraghavan, “Equilibrium in Queues under Unknown Service Rates and Service Value,” Operations Research, 62(1), 38-57.
- With J. Sun, (2014) “Sustaining Long-Term Relationships Using Price-Only Contract,” European Journal of Operational Research, 233(3), 557-565, (2014)
- With M. Shunko and S. Gavirneni, “Transfer Pricing and Sourcing Strategies for Multinational Firms,” Production and Operations Management, 23(12), 2043-2057 (lead article), (2014)
- With M. Kremer, “Inferring Quality from Wait Time,” Management Science,62(10), 3023-3038, (2016)
- With M. Yu and R. Kapuscinski, “Strategic Waiting for Consumer-generated Quality Information: Dynamic Pricing of Experience Goods,” Management Science,62(2):410-435, (2016)
- With X. Wang and A. Scheller-Wolf, “Managing Nurse Lines—Practical Challenges and Developing Theory,” International Journal of Production Research, 53(24): 7213-7225, (2015)
- With L. Yang and V. Gupta, "Trading Time in a Congested Environment," Management Science, 63(7), 2377-2395, (2017)
- With L. Yang, “Invite Your Friend and You’ll Move up in Line: Leveraging Social Ties vis Operational Incentives," Management Science, 65(5), 2231-2248, (2018)
- With L. Yang and V. Gupta, “Search Among Queues under Quality Differentiation,” Management Science, 65(8), 3605-3623, (2018)
- With Uday Rajan and S.K. Veeraraghavan, “Signaling Quality via Long Lines and Uninformative Prices,” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (May-June), 22(3), 513-527, (2020)