Essays on supply chain and technology management under global competition and stochastically evolving markets

This dissertation focuses on two major topics: (1) Modeling, analysis and deepened understanding of how operational hedging approaches benefit firms facing global competition under uncertain exchange rates and stochastic demands (the first essay coauthored with Panos Kouvelis, and the second with Lingxiu Dong and Panos Kouvelis); (2) Timing of technology adoption in duopolistic settings with stochastically evolving markets through use of real options, game theory, and optimal stopping time analysis tools (co-work with Chester Chambers and Panos Kouvelis).; The first essay is a review of global supply chain management. We are concerned with the structure of global supply chains and choices involving the network of facilities at all stages of the supply chain to successfully execute the global business strategy.; The second essay investigates the impact of operational flexibility on firms' economic exposure to currency fluctuations under global competition. We consider a global firm who sells as a monopolist in the domestic market, and also sells to a foreign market facing competition from a local incumbent. We compare three operational strategies of the global firm, namely, with no operational flexibility but matching currency footprints, with postponement flexibility, and with both postponement and allocation flexibility. We conclude: (1) Operational flexibility increases the firm's expected profit. (2) Operational flexibility allows for downside risk control. (3) The global firm's operational flexibility increases its competitor's downside risk. (4) We illustrate how the global firm can use financial derivative contracts to effectively hedge some of the profit risk.; The third essay considers the adoption of technology that will reduce unit production costs by duopolists sharing a single market. We develop 2 models; one involving competition in output rates, and another which considers quality-based competition. In both settings an evolution of the market is manifested by changes in a market-specific parameter. In the first model market size will change. In the second model, the taste for quality of the most quality conscious consumer changes. We capture this evolution by assuming that the critical market-specific parameter experiences shocks described by Geometric Brownian Motion. We derive optimal adoption points for both firms where adoption involves a firm-specific investment, and results in a reduction of variable, per-unit cost that is also firm specific.