报告题目：Live-streamer as A Selling Agent: Is Sales Commitment Profitable?

报告人：肖勇波（杰青、长青、优青）

报告时间：2022.6.16，14：00-15：30. 腾讯会议：874-351-970

主办单位：9728太阳集团、研究生院

内容简介：

With the rapid development of live-streaming e-commerce, it has been increasingly common for firms to collaborate with live-streamers (e.g., online influencers, celebrities, or key opinion leaders) to promote and sell their products via live broadcasting shows. In addition to the products and reputation of the live-streamers, the success of a live-streaming show largely depends on the effort the live-streamers devoted in attracting fans and promoting products. Hence, in order to improve the live-show sales, in addition to the sales commissions, the live-streaming agreement signed between the seller and live-streamer sometimes specifies a minimal sales volume, which represents the sales commitment the live-streamer makes. In this paper, we study the impact of such commitment on the performance of a supply chain where a seller sells its product via a live-streamer. The live-streamer determines the effort level that affects random demand at the live-show while the seller determines the stocking level to be prepared prior to the live-show. We solve and compare their optimal decisions and corresponding expected profits for the scenarios without and with the live-streamer's sales commitment. Without sales commitment, the live-streamer's optimal effort and profit first increase and then decrease in the commission rate; while the seller's optimal stocking level and profit could be decreasing or first increasing and then decreasing in the commission rate, depending on the popularity of the live-streamer. With sales commitment, if the live-streamer indeed commits, she spends more effort and commits more while the seller stocks more when the commission rate increases. Compared between these two scenarios, the live-streamer is always better off whereas the seller would also be better off if the live-streamer's penalty of not fulfilling commitment is high or the commission rate is relatively low. Finally, we propose a set of commitment-based contracts to coordinate decisions of the seller and the live-streamer that maximize their overall profit.

报告人简介：

肖勇波，2000年获清华大学管理信息系统学士学位，2006年获清华大学管理科学与工程博士学位，2006.1-2008.7清华大学经济管理学院应用经济学博士后，2008年8月加入清华大学经济管理学院管理科学与工程系，2011年12月晋升为副教授，2014年10月获得长聘，2018年12月晋升为正教授。担任国际学术期刊《Journal of Systems Science and Systems Engineering》的Managing Editor和《Naval Research Logistics》的Area Editor；是国家自然科学基金杰出青年基金（2021）、教育部长江学者青年学者（2015）、国家自然科学基金优秀青年基金（2012）和中国管理学青年奖（2014）的获得者。主要研究领域包括收益与定价管理、供应链管理、服务管理等。学术论文发表于《Operations Research》、《Production and Operations Management》、《Decision Sciences》、《Naval Research Logistics》、《IIE Transactions》等运作管理领域重要国际期刊，以及《系统工程理论与实践》、《中国管理科学》、《管理科学学报》等国内核心学术刊物。