My philosophy as an academic has been to interconnect my research, teaching and service towards the goal of closing the gap between industry and academia and improving the applicability of academic research in practice. My research interests lie in the intersection of two broad areas within the marketing and operations interface; supply chain management and pricing and revenue management. While my interests during my dissertation focused on the strategic interactions between stakeholders in a supply chain, such as centralized vs. decentralized decision making and coordination mechanism design, my industry experience triggered my interest in revenue management (RM), with a focus on price optimization and demand modeling for travel and hospitality. Since coming back to academia, I have also gained interest in behavioral operations management to understand strategic customer behavior in supply chain and RM applications through analytical and empirical studies, including lab experiments. Since receiving tenure as an associate professor, I have expanded my research into humanitarian and non-profit operations, with a passion for making a positive societal impact with operations research and analytics.
Published or Forthcoming Papers in Refereed Journals
L. Sharma, P. Pekgün, O. Öztürk and S. Ahire (2024), “When do part-time workers increase effectiveness? A study of food banks and the SNAP program outreach”, forthcoming at Journal of Operations Management.
S. Cho, P. Pekgün, R. Janakiraman and J. Wang (2024), “The Competitive Effects of Online Reviews on Hotel Demand”, Journal of Marketing, 88(2), 40-60.
o 2019 INFORMS Social Media Section Best Student Paper Award Third Place Winner
o 2019 INFORMS Service Science Best Paper Award Finalist
o Featured on The JM Buzz by Journal of Marketing on Spotify, “Hotels Should Pay Attention to Their Competitors’ Reviews Too”
o Featured on Scholarly Insights series by Journal of Marketing, “A Secret for Boosting Hotel Bookings: Analyze Online User Reviews for Both Your Hotel and Your Competitors”
S. Cho, M. Ferguson, P. Pekgün and A. Vakhutinsky (2023), “Estimating Personalized Demand with Unobserved No-purchases using a Mixture Model: An Application in the Hotel Industry”, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, 25(4), 1245-1262.
o 2020/21 M&SOM Practice-Based Research Competition Finalist
o Featured with a press release on INFORMS website
D. Kim, P. Keskinocak, P. Pekgün and İ. Yıldırım (2022), “The Balancing Role of Distribution Speed against Varying Efficacy Levels of COVID-19 Vaccines under Variants”, Scientific Reports, 12:7493 (open access).
Ö. Yılmaz, M. Ferguson, P. Pekgün and G. Shang (2022), “Strategic Behavior for Hotel Standby Upgrade Programs: Empirical Evidence and Pricing Implications”, Journal of Operations Management, 68, 675-701.
D. Kim, P. Pekgün, İ. Yıldırım and P. Keskinocak (2021), “Resource Allocation for Two Types of Vaccines against COVID-19: Tradeoffs and Synergies between Efficacy and Reach”, Vaccine, 39(47), pp. 6876-6882.
P. Pekgün, M. Park, P. Keskinocak and M. Janakiram (2019), “Does Forecast-Accuracy Based Allocation Induce Customers to Share Truthful Order Forecasts?”, Production and Operations Management, 28(10), pp. 2500-2513.
S. Ahire and P. Pekgün (2018), “Harvest Hope Food Bank Optimizes its Promotional Strategy to Raise Donations using Integer Programming”, INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics (Interfaces), 48(4), pp. 291-306.
o Selected as Featured/Lead Article in July–August 2018 issue
o Featured in Moore School News in November 2018; “Moore School faculty members publish research to benefit food banks”
P. Pekgün, M. Galbreth and B. Ghosh (2018), “How Perceptions of User Reviews Impact Competition under Partial Consumer Awareness”, Decision Sciences, 49(2), pp. 250-274.
o Featured in Moore School News in February/March 2018; “Your Voice Matters: The Impact of User Reviews”
Ö. Yılmaz, P. Pekgün and M. Ferguson (2017), “Would You Like to Upgrade to a Premium Room? Evaluating the Benefit of Offering Standby Upgrades”, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, 19(1), pp. 1-18.
o Selected as Featured/Lead Article in Winter 2017 issue
o Featured with a press release on INFORMS website, in M&SOM review, and on social media by the Editor-in-Chief, Christopher Tang
G. Shang, P. Pekgün, M. Ferguson and M. Galbreth (2017), “How Much do Online Consumers Really Value Free Product Returns? Evidence from eBay”, Journal of Operations Management, 53-56, pp. 45-62.
o Journal of Operations Management - Jack Meredith Best Paper Award Finalist, 2018
P. Pekgün, P. M. Griffin and P. Keskinocak (2017), “Centralized vs. Decentralized Competition for Price and Lead-time Sensitive Demand”, Decision Sciences, 48(6), pp. 1198-1227.
P. Pekgün, B. Garner and E. Uyar (2014), “Applying Pricing and Revenue Management in the Golf Industry: Key Challenges”, Journal of Revenue & Pricing Management, 13, pp. 470-482.
P. Pekgün, R. P. Menich, S. Acharya, P. G. Finch, F. Deschamps, K. Mallery, J. van Sistine, K. Christianson, J. Fuller (2013), “Carlson Hotels Maximizes Revenue through Improved Demand Management and Price Optimization”, Interfaces, 43(1), pp. 21-36.
o 2012 INFORMS Franz Edelman Award Finalist
o 2013 INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Section Practice Prize Finalist
P. Pekgün, P. M. Griffin and P. Keskinocak (2008), “Coordination of marketing and production for price and lead-time decisions”, IIE Transactions, 40 (1), pp.12-30.
o IIE Transactions Best Paper Award in Scheduling and Logistics, 2009
o The third most downloaded (from informaworld) IIE Transactions article in 2009; the first two most downloaded were both review articles.
o Featured in the January 2008 issue of the Industrial Engineer magazine; “Fast Delivery or a Lower Price?”
U. Bilge, F. Kirac, M. Kurtulan and P. Pekgün (2004), “A tabu search algorithm for parallel machine total tardiness problem”, Computers & Operations Research, 31, 397-414.
Working Papers
Papers in Review Process
S. Cho, J. Im, M. Ferguson and P. Pekgün, “Robust Demand Estimation with Customer Choice-Based Models for Sales Transaction Data”, invited for revision.
Y. Han, L. Sharma, P. Pekgün, O. Perdikaki, “Achieving Resilience with Redundancy in Food Bank Operations”, invited for revision.
o 2023 DSI Annual Conference Doctoral Research Showcase Award Winner
Y. Han, L. Sharma and P. Pekgün, “Enhancing Fundraising Productivity through Strategic Staffing and Revenue Diversification Decisions: Evidence from Food Banks”, under review.
O. Öztürk, P. Pekgün and K. Ruffini, “Free School Meals and Demand for Community Food Resources”, under review.
F. Zou, L. Sharma, P. Pekgün and S. Ahire, “Reducing Food Waste in U.S. Food Banks: The Role of Distribution Strategies ”, invited for revision.
M. Park, P. Pekgün, M. Malhotra and S. Venkataraman, “Investigating Buyers' Ordering Behavior under Uniform Allocation in a Two-Stage Supply Chain”, under revision for resubmission.
Papers in Progress
S. Mumbower, P. Pekgün, and M. Ferguson, “Correcting for Price Endogeneity in Demand Models for Revenue Management: Linear Demand vs. Discrete Choice”, Working Paper, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC.
S. Cho, P. Pekgün and M. Galbreth, “The Effects of Social Learning on Product Assortment and Pricing Strategy”, Working Paper.
Ö. Yılmaz, P. Pekgün, M. Ferguson and G. Shang, “Team-specific ticket options: A safety play for fans”, Working Paper.
S. Mumbower, P. Pekgün, Y. Peng and S. Cho, “Empirically Estimating Unobserved Mix of Airline Customer's Trip Purposes”, Working Paper.
P. Pekgün, P. M. Griffin and P. Keskinocak, “Estimating Price Elasticities in the Travel Industry under Revenue Management Controls”, Working Paper.
Review Articles and Book Chapters
M. Çelik, Ö. Ergun, B. Johnson, P. Keskinocak, Á. Lorca, P. Pekgün and J. Swann (2012), “Humanitarian Logistics”, in TutORials in Operations Research (J. C. Smith Ed.), Chapter 2, pp. 18-49.
P. Pekgün (2012), “Book Review: Revenue Management for Manufacturing Companies”, Journal of Revenue & Pricing Management 11(3), pp. 350-351.
P. Pekgün (2011), “Pricing and Lead-Time Decisions”, in Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science.