Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic pain condition that is characterized by hypersensitivity to multimodal sensory stimuli, widespread pain, and fatigue. We have previously proposed explosive synchronization (ES), a phenomenon wherein a small perturbation to a network can lead to an abrupt state transition, as a potential mechanism of the hypersensitive FM brain. Therefore, we hypothesized that converting a brain network from ES to general synchronization (GS) may reduce the hypersensitivity of FM brain. To find an effective brain network modulation to convert ES into GS, we constructed a large-scale brain network model near criticality (i.e., an optimally balanced state between order and disorders), which reflects brain dynamics in conscious wakefulness, and adjusted two parameters: local structural connectivity and signal randomness of target brain regions. The network sensitivity to global stimuli was compared between the brain networks before and after the modulation. We found that only increasing the local connectivity of hubs (nodes with intense connections) changes ES to GS, reducing the sensitivity, whereas other types of modulation such as decreasing local connectivity, increasing and decreasing signal randomness are not effective. This study would help to develop a network mechanism-based brain modulation method to reduce the hypersensitivity in FM.
At many firms, incentivized salespeople with private information about customers are responsible for customer relationship management. Although incentives motivate sales performance, private information can induce moral hazard by salespeople to gain compensation at the expense of the firm. The authors investigate the sales performance–moral hazard trade-off in response to multidimensional performance (acquisition and maintenance) incentives in the presence of private information. Using unique panel data on customer loan acquisition and repayments linked to salespeople from a microfinance bank, the authors detect evidence of salesperson private information. Acquisition incentives induce salesperson moral hazard, leading to adverse customer selection, but maintenance incentives moderate it as salespeople recognize the negative effects of acquiring low-quality customers on future payoffs. Critically, without the moderating effect of maintenance incentives, the adverse selection effect of acquisition incentives overwhelms the sales-enhancing effects, clarifying the importance of multidimensional incentives for customer relationship management. Reducing private information (through job transfers) hurts customer maintenance but has greater impact on productivity by moderating adverse selection at acquisition. This article also contributes to the recent literature on detecting and disentangling customer adverse selection and customer moral hazard (defaults) with a new identification strategy that exploits the time-varying effects of salesperson incentives.
This paper broadens the focus of empirical research on salesforce management to include multitasking settings with multidimensional incentives, where salespeople have private information about customers. This allows us to ask novel substantive questions around multidimensional incentive design and job design while managing the costs and benefits of private information. To this end, the paper introduces the first structural model of a multitasking salesforce in response to multidimensional incentives. The model also accommodates (i) dynamic intertemporal tradeoffs in effort choice across the tasks and (ii) salesperson’s private information about customers. We apply our model in a rich empirical setting in microfinance and illustrate how to address various identification and estimation challenges. We extend two-step estimation methods used for unidimensional compensation plans by embedding a flexible machine learning (random forest) model in the first-stage multitasking policy function estimation within an iterative procedure that accounts for salesperson heterogeneity and private information. Estimates reveal two latent segments of salespeople—a hunter segment that is more efficient in loan acquisition and a farmer segment that is more efficient in loan collection. Counterfactuals reveal heterogeneous effects: hunters’ private information hurts the firm as they engage in adverse selection; farmers’ private information helps the firm as they use it to better collect loans. The payoff complementarity induced by multiplicative incentive aggregation softens adverse specialization by hunters relative to additive aggregation but hurts performance among farmers. Overall, task specialization in job design for hunters (acquisition) and farmers (collection) hurts the firm as adverse selection harm overwhelms efficiency gain. This paper was accepted by Duncan Simester, marketing.
A patterned metal plate fabricated by etching process is generally employed on the bottom of a foldable display to meet mechanical properties such as rigidity and foldability. Although polyimide film has been largely applied on the top of the patterned metal plate, there have been several limitations in terms of crease and pattern protrusion as well as pattern borderline perception, impact resistance, and finger touch heterogeneity. The purpose of this study is to substitute polyimide film with a thin metal plate and assess comparative effectiveness. The result shows that it is effective in reducing crease and pattern protrusion in particular.
In many firms, incentivized salespeople with private information about their customers are responsible for customer relationship management (CRM). Private information can help the firm by increasing sales efficiency, but it can also hurt the firm if salespeople use it to maximize own compensation at the expense of the firm. Specifically, we consider two negative outcomes due to private information -ex-ante customer adverse selection at the time of acquisition and ex-post customer moral hazard after acquisition. This paper investigates potential positive and negative responses of a salesforce to managerial levers--multidimensional incentives for acquisition and retention performance and job transfers that affect the level of private information.Salespeople are responsible for managing customer relationships and compensated through multidimensional performance incentives for customer acquisition and maintenance at many firms. This paper investigates how a salesperson's private information on customers affect their response to multiple dimensions of incentives. Using unique matched panel data that links individual salesperson performance metrics with customer level loans and repayments from a microfinance bank, we find that sales people indeed possess private information that is not available to the firm.Salespeople use the private information to engage in adverse selection of customers in response to acquisition incentives. Customer maintenance incentives serve a dual purpose; they not only reduce loan defaults, but also moderate adverse selection in customer acquisition. Transfers that eliminate private information reduces the adverse selection effects of acquisition incentives, but increase loan defaults-customer moral hazard. Despite the potential negative adverse selection effects due to private information, the effort increasing effect of each of the three dimensions of sales management we investigate---acquisition incentive, maintenance incentive and transfers all have a net positive Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2926064 2 effect on firm value. Methodologically, the paper introduces an identification strategy to separate customer adverse selection and customer moral hazard (loan repayment), by leveraging the multidimensional incentives of an intermediary (salesperson) responsible for both customer selection and repayment with private information about customers.
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