IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/lrc/larijb/v4y2014i5p137-150.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Newsvendor Problem Experiments: Riskiness of the Decisions and Learning by Experience

Author

Listed:
  • Arshavskiy V.

    (Research Scientist,Center for Technology and Economics Development, NYU Abu Dhabi and Graduate School of Management, Saint–Petersburg State University,)

  • Okulov V.

    (Associate Professor, Department of Finance and Accounting, Graduate School of Management, Saint–Petersburg State University,)

  • Smirnova A.

    (Master in Management,Graduate School of Management,Saint–Petersburg State University,)

Abstract

We describe the results of three controlled (multi–rounds) experiments in which the players made decisions on purchasing products by fixed price and further selling under demand uncertainty. In our experiments we have introduced the competition; if aplayer has a lot of product ordered, he could win over buyers away from his competitor. We study the rationality of decisions and the learning by experience. Analysis shows that in each round the average decision of players was more aggressive (risky) than the optimal decision obtained under the assumption that the players maximize the expected profit. But by the end of the experiments the variance of the individual decisions decreased, so the choice of decision was more confident and conscious.

Suggested Citation

  • Arshavskiy V. & Okulov V. & Smirnova A., 2014. "Newsvendor Problem Experiments: Riskiness of the Decisions and Learning by Experience," International Journal of Business and Social Research, LAR Center Press, vol. 4(5), pages 137-150, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:lrc:larijb:v:4:y:2014:i:5:p:137-150
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://thejournalofbusiness.org/index.php/site/article/view/500/405
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Srinagesh Gavirneni & Yusen Xia, 2009. "Anchor Selection and Group Dynamics in Newsvendor Decisions---A Note," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 6(2), pages 87-97, June.
    2. Mostard, Julien & Teunter, Ruud, 2006. "The newsboy problem with resalable returns: A single period model and case study," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 169(1), pages 81-96, February.
    3. U Benzion & Y Cohen & R Peled & T Shavit, 2008. "Decision-making and the newsvendor problem: an experimental study," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(9), pages 1281-1287, September.
    4. Teck-Hua Ho & Noah Lim & Tony Haitao Cui, 2010. "Reference Dependence in Multilocation Newsvendor Models: A Structural Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(11), pages 1891-1910, November.
    5. Archavski, V. Yu. & Okulov, V. L., 2012. "An Experiment on Decision Making under Risk and Uncertainty," Working Papers 541, Graduate School of Management, St. Petersburg State University.
    6. Alfares, Hesham K. & Elmorra, Hassan H., 2005. "The distribution-free newsboy problem: Extensions to the shortage penalty case," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 465-477, January.
    7. Marshall Fisher & Ananth Raman, 1996. "Reducing the Cost of Demand Uncertainty Through Accurate Response to Early Sales," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 44(1), pages 87-99, February.
    8. Martin G. Kocher & Matthias Sutter, 2005. "The Decision Maker Matters: Individual Versus Group Behaviour in Experimental Beauty-Contest Games," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(500), pages 200-223, January.
    9. Gary E. Bolton & Elena Katok, 2008. "Learning by Doing in the Newsvendor Problem: A Laboratory Investigation of the Role of Experience and Feedback," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 519-538, September.
    10. David J. Cooper & John H. Kagel, 2005. "Are Two Heads Better Than One? Team versus Individual Play in Signaling Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 477-509, June.
    11. Gary Charness & Edi Karni & Dan Levin, 2007. "Individual and group decision making under risk: An experimental study of Bayesian updating and violations of first-order stochastic dominance," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 129-148, October.
    12. Anton Ovchinnikov & Brent Moritz & Bernardo F. Quiroga, 2015. "How to Compete Against a Behavioral Newsvendor," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 24(11), pages 1783-1793, November.
    13. Archavski, Victor Yu. & Okulov, Vitaly L., 2012. "An Experiment on Decision Making under Risk and Uncertainty," Working Papers 807, Graduate School of Management, St. Petersburg State University.
    14. Qin, Yan & Wang, Ruoxuan & Vakharia, Asoo J. & Chen, Yuwen & Seref, Michelle M.H., 2011. "The newsvendor problem: Review and directions for future research," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 213(2), pages 361-374, September.
    15. Nicholas C. Petruzzi & Maqbool Dada, 1999. "Pricing and the Newsvendor Problem: A Review with Extensions," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 47(2), pages 183-194, April.
    16. Maurice E. Schweitzer & Gérard P. Cachon, 2000. "Decision Bias in the Newsvendor Problem with a Known Demand Distribution: Experimental Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(3), pages 404-420, March.
    17. Feng, Tianjun & Keller, L. Robin & Zheng, Xiaona, 2011. "Decision making in the newsvendor problem: A cross-national laboratory study," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 41-50, January.
    18. Wang, Qinan & Parlar, Mahmut, 1994. "A three-person game theory model arising in stochastic inventory control theory," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 83-97, July.
    19. Serguei Netessine & Nils Rudi, 2003. "Centralized and Competitive Inventory Models with Demand Substitution," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 51(2), pages 329-335, April.
    20. Mahmut Parlar, 1988. "Game theoretic analysis of the substitutable product inventory problem with random demands," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(3), pages 397-409, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arshavskiy V. & Okulov V. & Smirnova A., 2014. "Newsvendor Problem Experiments: Riskiness of the Decisions and Learning by Experience," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 4(5), pages 137-150, May.
    2. Villa, Sebastián & Castañeda, Jaime Andrés, 2018. "Transshipments in supply chains: A behavioral investigation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 269(2), pages 715-729.
    3. Silbermayr, Lena, 2020. "A review of non-cooperative newsvendor games with horizontal inventory interactions," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    4. Meng Li & Nicholas C. Petruzzi & Jun Zhang, 2017. "Overconfident Competing Newsvendors," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(8), pages 2637-2646, August.
    5. Gu, Huaying & Liu, Zhixue & Qing, Qiankai, 2017. "Optimal electric vehicle production strategy under subsidy and battery recycling," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 579-589.
    6. Castañeda, Jaime Andrés & Brennan, Mark & Goentzel, Jarrod, 2019. "A behavioral investigation of supply chain contracts for a newsvendor problem in a developing economy," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 72-83.
    7. Diego D’Urso & Ferdinando Chiacchio & Evangelia Demerouti, 2021. "Measuring How Decision Support Systems Improve Newsvendors’ Performance: The Subjects’ Version," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-16, September.
    8. Vipin, B. & Amit, R.K., 2019. "Describing decision bias in the newsvendor problem: A prospect theory model," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 132-141.
    9. Foster, Joshua & Deck, Cary & Farmer, Amy, 2019. "Behavioral demand effects when buyers anticipate inventory shortages," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 276(1), pages 217-234.
    10. Mandal, Prasenjit & Kaul, Rupali & Jain, Tarun, 2018. "Stocking and pricing decisions under endogenous demand and reference point effects," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 264(1), pages 181-199.
    11. He, Haonan & Wang, Shanyong, 2019. "Cost-benefit associations in consumer inventory problem with uncertain benefit," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 271-284.
    12. Halkos, George & Kevork, Ilias, 2012. "Unbiased estimation of maximum expected profits in the Newsvendor Model: a case study analysis," MPRA Paper 40724, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. U Benzion & Y Cohen & R Peled & T Shavit, 2008. "Decision-making and the newsvendor problem: an experimental study," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(9), pages 1281-1287, September.
    14. U Benzion & Y Cohen & T Shavit, 2010. "The newsvendor problem with unknown distribution," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(6), pages 1022-1031, June.
    15. Herweg, Fabian, 2013. "The expectation-based loss-averse newsvendor," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(3), pages 429-432.
    16. Becker-Peth, Michael & Thonemann, Ulrich W., 2016. "Reference points in revenue sharing contracts—How to design optimal supply chain contracts," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 249(3), pages 1033-1049.
    17. Dongling Cai & Li Jiang, 2020. "The Bright and Dark Sides of Customer Switching," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(6), pages 1381-1396, June.
    18. Anna‐Lena Sachs & Michael Becker‐Peth & Stefan Minner & Ulrich W. Thonemann, 2022. "Empirical newsvendor biases: Are target service levels achieved effectively and efficiently?," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(4), pages 1839-1855, April.
    19. Elahi, Ehsan & Lamba, Narasimha & Ramaswamy, Chinthana, 2013. "How can we improve the performance of supply chain contracts? An experimental study," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 146-157.
    20. Yufei Ren & David Croson & Rachel Croson, 2017. "The overconfident newsvendor," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(5), pages 496-506, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lrc:larijb:v:4:y:2014:i:5:p:137-150. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Al Hossain (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.thejournalofbusiness.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.