Selected Publications
Self-Regulation and External Influence: The Relative Efficacy of Mobile Apps and Offline Channels for Personal Weight Management
( Kwon, Hyeokkoo Eric | Dewan, Sanjeev | Oh, Wonseok | Kim, Taekyung )INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCHforthcoming
Abstract
This study contributes to the information systems literature on mobile health interventions and omnichannel management by examining the relative effectiveness of mobile and offline channels in facilitating personal weight management. Drawing on the social cognitive theory of self-regulation, our empirical analysis utilizes a system generalized method of moments approach applied to panel data on customers enrolled in a weight loss program that delivers services through multiple channels, including a mobile app and offline office visits. Our results show that the use of the mobile app is positively associated with weight management by both free and paid users. For paid users, who have access to the mobile app and office visits, usage of both channels is associated with increased shortterm weight loss. Furthermore, the two channels function as substitutes for one another, with users able to compensate for infrequent offline store visits through more intense mobile app usage. In the long term, however, only mobile app usage (and not offline store visits) contributes to the sustainability of weight loss, as reflected in reduced weight variability and lower overall failure rate. Qualitative evidence gleaned from interviews with actual customers substantiated the self-regulation mechanism enabled by mobile app usage. Additional empirical analyses further revealed that frequency and granularity of mobile app usage are positively associated with weight loss. We also found that individuals exposed to low performance pressure benefit more fully from mobile app usage. The results are robust to endogeneity concerns and alternative measures of the key variables. Overall, our analysis sheds light on the important role of a self-regulatory mobile app in a multichannel setting of personal weight management, as compared with the external influence stemming from human experts in offline channels, with useful implications for research and practice.
Green Cloud? An Empirical Analysis of Cloud Computing and Energy Efficiency
( Park, Jiyong | Han, Kunsoo | Lee, Byungtae )MARKETING SCIENCEforthcoming
Abstract
The rapid, widespread adoption of cloud computing over the last decade has sparked debates on its environmental impacts. Given that cloud computing alters the dynamics of energy consumption between service providers and users, a complete understanding of the environmental impacts of cloud computing requires an investigation of its impact on the user side, which can be weighed against its impact on the vendor side. Drawing on production theory and using a stochastic frontier analysis, this study examines the impact of cloud computing on users' energy efficiency. To this end, we develop a novel industry-level measure of cloud computing based on doud-based information technology (IT) services. Using U.S. economy-wide data from 57 industries during 1997-2017, our findings suggest that cloud-based IT services improve users' energy efficiency. This effect is found to be significant only after 2006, when cloud computing started to be commercialized, and becomes even stronger after 2010. Moreover, we find heterogeneous impacts of cloud computing, depending on the cloud service models, energy types, and internal IT hardware intensity, which jointly assist in teasing out the underlying mechanisms. Although software-as-a-service (SaaS) is significantly associated with both electric and nonelectric energy efficiency improvement across all industries, infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is positively associated only with electric energy efficiency for industries with high IT hardware intensity. To illuminate the mechanisms more clearly, we conduct a firm-level survey analysis, which demonstrates that SaaS confers operational benefits by facilitating energy-efficient production, whereas the primary role of IaaS is to mitigate the energy consumption of internal IT equipment and infrastructure. According to our industry-level analysis, the total user-side energy cost savings from cloud computing in the overall US. economy are estimated to be USD 2.8-12.6 billion in 2017 alone, equivalent to a reduction in electricity use by 31.8-143.8 billion kilowatt-hours. This estimate exceeds the total energy expenditure in the cloud service vendor industries and is comparable to the total electricity consumption in US. data centers.
Do Firms Redact Information from Material Contracts to Conceal Bad News?
( Bao, Dichu | Kim, Yongtae | Su, Lixin (Nancy) )ACCOUNTING REVIEW2022-09
Abstract
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows firms to redact information from material contracts by submitting confidential treatment requests if redacted information is not material and would cause competitive harm upon public disclosure. This study examines whether managers use confidential treatment requests to conceal bad news. We show that confidential treatment requests are positively associated with residual short interest, a proxy for managers' private negative information. This positive association is more pronounced for firms with lower litigation risk, higher executive equity incentives, and lower external monitoring. Confidential treatment requests filed by firms with higher residual short interests are associated with higher stock price crash risk and poorer future performance. Collectively, our results suggest that managers redact information from material contracts to conceal bad news.
Shared Fate and Entrepreneurial Collective Action in the US Wood Pellet Market
( Hiatt, Shon R. | Park, Sangchan )ORGANIZATION SCIENCE2022-09
Abstract
Although studies underscore the importance of creating a coherent collective identity in order to legitimate a new market category, strategy and entrepreneurship research is divided on whether and to what degree an entrepreneur will engage in collective action to promote the identity. To reconcile the inconsistency, we introduce the concept of entrepreneurial shared fate-the belief of a focal venture that it and its competitors are bound together by a sense of belongingness and equally experience similar consequences-and explore how external threats can influence the degree of shared fate. We conceptually distinguish between communal and individual threats and propose that communal threats will increase, whereas individual threats will decrease, shared fate. We also explore boundary conditions that strengthen and weaken the main effects of perceived communal and individual threats on collective identity promotion. Empirically, we examine venture identity framing in response to forest-conservation activism in the U.S. wood pellet market. Implications for research on new market categories, collective identity, optimal distinctiveness, and forest management are discussed.
Good for your fiscal health? The effect of the affordable care act on healthcare borrowing costs
( Gao, Pengjie | Lee, Chang Joo | Murphy, Dermot )JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL ECONOMICS2022-08
Abstract
We study the effect of the US Affordable Care Act (ACA) on healthcare borrowing costs. The ACA provides insurance subsidies to low-income enrollees. States could accept funding to expand Medicaid, although many declined, citing the cost burden. The ACA significantly reduced healthcare yields after a favorable 2012 Supreme Court ruling. Furthermore, hospital investment spending increased, and investment-cash flow sensitivities decreased. The yield effect was double in Medicaid expansion states, and insignificant in rural areas of non-expansion states. Our results highlight how the municipal market can be used to evaluate the heterogeneous effects of public policy and guide a targeted policy approach. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
