Jason Nguyen is an Assistant Professor in the Operations Management and Sustainability groups at Ivey. Prior to joining Ivey, Jason was a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the UNSW Business School, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia and was a founding faculty at the College of Business and Management, VinUniversity Hanoi, Vietnam. He holds a Ph.D. in Supply Chain and Operations Management from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, US. M.Sc. in Operations Management from Singapore Management University and B.Eng in Computer Engineering from Nanyang Technological University.
Jason’s research aspiration is to contribute academic insights for the movement toward a global circular and sustainable economy that minimizes the consumption of resources, energy, and emissions. In his research, Jason utilizes tools from game theory, optimization, behavioral experiments, econometrics, and big data analytics to rigorously conceptualize and analyze how firms’ sustainable choices (configurations and operational decisions), as well as the resulting performance and profitability, are influenced by organizational antecedents and external factors (regulations, policies, incentive mechanisms, supply chain relationship and other stakeholders’ behaviors and perceptions). The primary research objective is to provide managerial insights that guide and inform the development and implementation of more effective environmental policies and incentive schemes. His research papers have been published in prestigious peer-reviewed journals including Management Science, Manufacturing and Services Operations Management and Environmental and Resource Economics.
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Huang, W.; Nguyen, J. N.; Tseng, C-L.; Chen, W.; Kirshner, S. N., (Forthcoming), "Pride or Guilt? Impacts of Consumers’ Socially Influenced Recycling Behaviors on Closed-Loop Supply Chains", Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
Abstract: Problem definition: Social influenced emotions of pride and guilt have been identified by the environmental psychology (EP) literature as crucial drivers impacting recycling behavior, but they have mostly been overlooked in operations management (OM) research. In contrast, EP studies often ignore firms’ operational decisions. We analyze the impacts of both social influence and firms’ operational decisions to provide a comprehensive understanding of consumers’ recycling behaviors, which is essential for realizing remanufacturing’s full potential. Methodology/results: We consider a closed-loop supply chain consisting of a manufacturer selling a single product to a consumer community. Consumers’ recycling behavior depends on both the recycling reward offered by the manufacturer, as well as intrinsic and socially influenced pride (guilt) from recycling (not recycling). We develop an evolutionary game to model consumers’ recycling behavior and characterize the resulting equilibrium recycling rate, which is then integrated into the manufacturer’s decision problem. We characterize the manufacturer’s optimal strategy and the equilibrium recycling rate in four distinct regions defined by both the product’s overall difficulty of remanufacturing and the underlying strengths of consumers’ socially influenced pride and guilt. We show that in settings where the product has a moderately high difficulty of remanufacturing and consumers have stronger socially influenced pride than guilt, the manufacturer optimally induces an interior recycling rate. In such scenarios, there exist win-win pathways in using social influence–based interventions to increase both the manufacturer’s profit and the recycling rate. However, misalignment may occur when consumers substantially care for the product’s recyclability. Managerial implications: This study bridges sustainable OM and EP literature by analyzing how consumers’ socially influenced emotions of pride and guilt affect a manufacturer’s optimal decisions, profits, and the resulting recycling rate. We provide important insights for designing effective and efficient social influence–based interventions to improve recycling rates.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/msom.2023.0721
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Nguyen, J. N., 2024, "Beyond policy impacts: Internal strategic capabilities as determinants of industrial energy efficiency implementation", Energy Policy, January 184: 113898 - 113898.
Abstract: Many countries have implemented policies to encourage higher Energy Efficiency (EE) implementation, but they seem insufficient and significant EE opportunities are unrealized. It is thus important to understand which internal strategic drivers can help further improve EE implementation by a firm. We develop a theoretical framework and empirically investigating how corporate strategy influences firms' EE implementation on top of EE policies. Drawing from the literature on Natural-resource-based view and Proactive Environmental Strategy, we hypothesize the impacts of several strategic capabilities, including shared vision, top management support and stakeholder integration on a firm's EE implementation. We test our hypotheses using combined secondary data of 572 publicly traded firms from the CDP report, COMPUSTAT Fundamentals North America and Global, and the World Economic Forum. Our study enriches the literature on firms' perceived EE drivers by dissecting the nuanced impacts of different strategic capabilities and exploring new dimensions. Our findings also suggest important policy insights in encouraging higher industrial EE implementation. It remains important to strengthen EE policies and regulation. However, to make further leaps in EE implementation, policy efforts could be spent in information campaigns helping redirect interpretation of EE improvements toward opportunities and away from risks/threats.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113898
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Nguyen, J. N.; Le, Q. V.; Ha, J. T., 2022, "Impacts of Health and Safety Concerns on E-Commerce and Service Reconfiguration During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Insights from an Emerging Economy", Service Science, December 13(4): 193 - 295.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented growth to the e-commerce industry, triggering widespread digital service transformation across various business segments in Vietnam. A pressing concern for both businesses and policymakers is whether the sudden peak in customer interest in e-commerce can be sustained in the future. This research seeks to address this concern by considering whether and how customers’ motivations to participate in e-commerce activities have changed. We collected primary data from a self-administered survey to empirically examine how health and safety concerns influence customers’ online shopping behavior during the pandemic, alongside other known determinants for e-commerce participation, namely technology readiness and connectedness. The results confirm that health and safety concerns have a positive influence on customers’ usage of e-commerce after controlling for technology readiness and connectedness. Furthermore, customers in age groups with higher risks of severe COVID-19 symptoms and mortality are more likely to increase e-commerce usage during the social distancing and isolation period. Our results support the idea that the customer base for e-commerce and digital services have expanded beyond the typical tech-savvy and young customers in their twenties. These are promising signs for postpandemic recovery and even expansion, as firms may leverage the momentum of change in customers’ motivations and start tailoring their public relation campaigns to address a wider age range of potential consumers.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/serv.2021.0279
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Coggins, J. S.; Goodkind, A. L.; Nguyen, J. N.; Wang, Z., 2019, "Price Effects, Inefficient Environmental Policy, and Windfall Profits", Environmental and Resource Economics, March 72(3): 637 - 656.
Abstract: We examine conditions under which a new or tighter restriction on emissions from a competitive polluting industry creates price effects in adjacent markets. Price effects may arise when a quantity restriction on emissions causes output to fall and, therefore, output price to rise. They may also arise when the required reduction in output causes the price of a polluting input to fall. We model emissions as a fixed proportion of output, limiting the possibilities for input substitutions. The possibility of price effects exists whenever the set of regulated firms is large relative to its input or output markets, a possibility that is expressly ruled out in Montgomery’s (J Econ Theory 5:395–418, 1972) paper. Two potential implications of price effects are explored. One is an efficiency concern: a welfare-maximizing regulator who neglects price effects will require more than the optimal level of abatement. The other is a distributional concern: an emissions restriction might create windfall profits for the polluting industry.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10640-018-0217-0
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Nguyen, J. N.; Donohue, K.; Mehrotra, M., 2019, "Closing a Supplier’s Energy Efficiency Gap Through Assessment Assistance and Procurement Commitment", Management Science, January 65(1): 122 - 138.
Abstract: This paper analyzes the energy efficiency (EE) investment decisions of a capital-constrained manufacturer that competes with an alternative supplier for the business of a large industrial buyer. Through a series of game-theoretic models, we characterize when it is beneficial for the buyer to offer EE instruments, including assessment assistance and procurement commitment, and how these instruments interact with third-party assessment assistance to affect the supplier’s EE investment level. We find that assessment assistance helps reduce the EE gap but procurement commitment is required to eliminate it. We also find that the availability of third-party assessment assistance reduces the buyer’s incentive to offer both of its instruments, a scenario that potentially lowers the supplier’s EE investment level. Our findings provide insights for buyers and policy makers interested in improving supply-chain EE.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2941
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Boyabatli, O.; Nguyen, J. N.; Wang, T., 2017, "Capacity Management in Agricultural Commodity Processing and Application in the Palm Industry", Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, October 19(4): 551 - 567.
Abstract: This paper examines the capacity investment decisions of a processor that uses a commodity input to produce both a commodity output and a by-product in the context of agricultural industries. We employ a multiperiod model to study the optimal one-time processing and (output) storage capacity investment decisions—in addition to the periodic processing and inventory decisions—when both input and output spot prices as well as production yield are uncertain. We characterize the optimal decisions and perform sensitivity analysis to investigate how spot price uncertainty affects the processor’s optimal capacity and profitability. Using a calibration based on the palm industry, we study (both numerically and analytically) the performance of a variety of heuristic capacity investment policies that can be used in practice. We find that if the yield uncertainty is ignored in capacity planning, then basing those plans on the average yield is preferable to basing them (as often occurs in practice) on the maximum yield. However, planning based on the average yield performs well only when the relative (processing-to-storage) capacity investment cost is high; otherwise, it leads to a significant loss of profit. We also find that ignoring spot price uncertainty in capacity planning results in a relatively small profit loss. In contrast, ignoring by-product revenue—which constitutes a small portion of total revenues—during capacity planning substantially reduces the processor’s profit.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/msom.2017.0624
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