Seminar_20240515
Communication in Social Services Operations
15/05/24 | 1:00pm | Business School (MHL 453）
Dr. Rouba Ibrahim, Full Professor
UCL School of Management
Abstract:
We study the effectiveness of information design as a managerial lever to mitigate the overuse of critical resources in congestion-prone social service systems. Leveraging the service provider’s informational advantage about relevant aspects of the system, effective communication requires the sharing of carefully curated information to persuade low-need customers to forgo service for the benefit of customers with higher service needs. To study whether effective communication can arise in equilibrium, we design controlled laboratory experiments to test the predictions of a queueing-game theoretic model that endogenizes the implementation of information-sharing policies. Our main result is that communication increases social welfare even when the service provider lacks the ability to formally commit to their information policy (as usually is the case in practical settings), i.e., under conditions where standard theory predicts that communication fails because it lacks credibility and thus fails to affect customer behaviour. (Joint work with Arturo Estrada Rodriguez and Mirko Kremer.)
Bio: Rouba Ibrahim is a professor at the School of Management of University College London (UCL). She holds a PhD degree in Operations Research from Columbia University (2010), an MSc degree in Applied Mathematics from Stony Brook University (2004), and a BSc degree in Mathematics from the American University of Beirut (2002). Her research interests lie in stochastic modelling applications to service systems, especially call centers and healthcare systems. In particular, she is interested in applying queueing-theoretic methods and numerical tools, such as simulation modelling and data analysis, to problems relating to the operational management of service systems.
Event Time and Venue: May 15th, 2024, 1:00pm, Business School (MHL 453)
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