PhD Defence: Xishu Li


In her dissertation ‘Dynamic Decision Making under Supply Chain Competition’ Xishu Li studies the impact of uncertainty and competition on a firm’s decision making in the field of operations management.

Xishu Li defended her dissertation in the Senate Hall at Erasmus University Rotterdam on Friday, 11 January 2019 at 09:30. Her supervisors were Prof. Réne de Koster (RSM), Prof. Rommert Dekker (ESE) and Prof. Rob Zuidwijk(RSM). Other members of the Doctoral Committee are Dr. Morteza Pourakbar (RSM), Dr. Christiaan Heij (ESE), Prof. Suresh Sethi (University of Texas), Prof. Geert-Jan van Houtum(Eindhoven University of Technology) and Prof. Fabian Sting (RSM). 

About Xishu Li

Xishu Li (1990) received her bachelor’s degree with a major in Logistics Management from Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China, in 2011, and graduated from the ERIM MPhil Research Master program at Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Erasmus University in 2013. Her master thesis focused on risk management of spare parts of long field-life systems. After her graduation, she worked at RSM to pursue a PhD degree. Her research is in the fields of operations management, economic modelling, data analytics, software development, and quantitative logistics. She focuses on topics including capacity investment, dynamic pricing, consumer-based revenue management, new product launch, supply disruption risk management, and sustainability. She works closely with private and public organizations in her research, focusing on project-specific problems and using industry data. In 2016, she was a visiting scholar in Naveen Jindal School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas, USA. Her research findings have been presented at various international conferences, including POMS and INFORMS, and the chapters of her dissertations have been published or currently under review at prestigious journals, including Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and Decision Sciences. In the fall of 2017, she started her tenure track at Science Based Business, Institute of Advanced Computer Science, Leiden University.

Thesis Abstract

This dissertation studies the impact of uncertainty and competition on a firm’s decision making in the field of operations management. First, I investigate the dynamics of a firm’s decision. Second, I investigate how competition between supply chain players changes the dynamics of a firm’s decisions. I focus on three specific decision areas: (1) capacity planning at the strategic and tactic levels (2) anti-counterfeiting strategies at the tactic level; and (3) risk management for long field-life systems at the operational level. Our main genetic research questions are as follows:

• how should a firm make its capacity investment decisions in a competitive market, considering the changing demand?

• how can a firm compete against counterfeiters in a global supply chain?

• how should a firm that purchases parts manage end-of-supply risk of these parts, considering the changing supply and demand?

 

Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images