Biography

Alok Gupta is currently Carlson School Professor of Information and Decision Sciences and Academic Director of Carlson Consulting Enterprise.  Prior to joining the faculty at Carlson School of Management, he was an Assistant Professor at Department of Operations and Information Management at School of Business, the University of Connecticut (UCONN) from 1997-2001.  From 1996-1997, he was a visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Business, University of Connecticut.  He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Management Science and Information Systems (MSIS) at the University of Texas at Austin in 1996.  At the University of Connecticut, Alok was Co-Director of Treibick Electronic Commerce Institute.  There, he also designed executive MBA program focused on Electronic Commerce.  He was also involved in the conception of the academic partnership developed between General Electric and UCONN titled edgeLab and served on its 6 member executive committee comprising of three top-level GE capital executives and three UCONN representatives.  Alok’s research has been published in many top level journals including Management Science, MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Decision Sciences, Decision Support Systems, Journal of MIS, Computational Economics, Communications of the ACM, IEEE Internet Computing, European Journal of Operations Research, Information & Management, Information Technology Management, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, and Journal of Organizational Computing.  In addition, his research has been published several conference proceedings such as International Conference on Information Systems, Workshop on Information Technology and Systems, the Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, and INFORMS Conference on Information Systems and Technology.  In addition, his articles have been published in high profile books such as Internet Economics and Handbook of Telecommunication Economics.  In 2001, he was awarded prestigious CAREER Award for his research in Online Mercantile Processes by National Science Foundation.  Alok Serves on the editorial boards of many top journals including Management Science, Information Systems Research, and Decision Support Systems.

Background: My academic background is quite eclectic.  My original training was in the field of geology and Mining Engineering.  By the end of my bachelor degree, my interests were more in computing, optimization, and technology.  Therefore, I joined a masters program in Power Electronics and Mine Electrical Systems at the Pennsylvania State University.  As part of my research and later I designed a diagnostic system to predict failure of alternators for MAC trucks.  While being interested in hardware technologies, I was always more interested in business, economics, and computing.  My doctoral studies and subsequent research (both academic and practice-oriented) has focused on the issue of economic design, performance, and evaluation of management information systems.

Research Interests:  My primary research interests are in the area of analyzing and controlling economic incentives of participants in business activity that is conducted via computer networks.  I am also interested in the adoption of cutting-edge technologies in designing or redesigning business processes.  Most of my research examines the economic foundations of information systems operation and design.  The progression in all my research has moved towards practical implications of theoretical and empirical findings.  I have closely worked with several large organizations to study feasibility, design, implementation, and evaluation of technology supported business processes.  The intersection of ideas has taken me from analytical models to algorithmic solutions to empirical investigations and back.  I am very excited about some of the ideas related to the economic impact of design and plan to develop them in more detail in the next few years.  Some of the identified research activities involve field experiments and economic experiments.

Current Research Projects:  While I am involved in several exciting projects at present.  There are two broad themes where I spend most of my research time:

The problem of design of systems has been a long standing interest of IS research.  As Donald Norman suggests in his book, Design of Everyday Things, the design should facilitate use.  However, from an economic perspective, design can affect economic incentives of users as well.  Through various constructs, a significant body of my work is related to understanding the effect of design on economic performance of a system or organization.  Based on my choices of methodologies, this effort can be further subdivided in at least two broad categories:

• Understanding the design choices for digital goods that span from bundling strategies for reducing piracy to choice of level of information available to customer when they make purchase decisions.  Since these design choices fundamentally affect the incentives for interaction, they may have a significant impact on operational strategies.
• Most companies do not adopt cutting-edge technologies for their business processes.  The disruptive nature of technology, with its potential of significantly changing the existing business process, makes companies reluctant in adopting new technology.  I have been fortunate to be involved in such adoption efforts at a large company.  The efforts have been both successful and unsuccessful when looked at from the perspective of eventual adoption.  These efforts have led me to examine the nature of technology and to understand the business incentives for adopting these technologies.

Design and facilitation of electronic markets and electronic market mechanisms is a central focus of my current research.  Supported by NSF CAREER grant this work has focused on understanding the characteristics of many different auction based approaches used by online auctioneers.  My research has identified many interesting facets of design of auctions and the behavior of bidders in these auctions.  The research has led many interesting new areas including design of real-time auction mechanism for complex auctions such as auctions for financial instruments and combinatorial procurement auctions.  I am working with several individuals from within the department such as Rob Kauffman & Gedas Adomavicius and researchers from computer science department such as Maria Gini.  In addition, I am working with some industry personnel to develop strategy, evaluate options, and design mechanisms for their business contexts.

General Impressions:  I am very excited to be part of a vibrant research group at the Department of IDSc.  It is a privilege to be part of the MIS group in a place that is often referred to as birthplace of MIS as an academic field.  It is my belief that the existence of MISRC and our links to the practice through it is a strong asset and has potential to become driver of research that is both rigorous and practical.

For contact information, please visit the IDSc Faculty Information Page.