Essays on service operations management

Abstract

This dissertation comprises three essays that examine the firm's decision-making and its impact on consumers across various industries. The first essay investigates pricing schemes on decentralized cloud storage platforms. We consider three pricing schemes varying in the amount of free bandwidth allowance and analyze their effects on the firm's profit and social surplus. The second study examines the firm's allocation decision between refundable and non-refundable products in the service industry. We analyze consumers' decisions in response to the products' refundability as well as the firm's optimal allocation decision. The third essay studies the warranty as a means of securing competitiveness against compatible consumables in the durable market. We analyze how providing a warranty affects the firm's profit and consumer surplus.