Vibhanshu Abhishek

Vibhanshu Abhishek is an Associate Professor of Information Systems the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California - Irvine. His research focuses on the effect of emerging technologies on consumers' behavior, business strategy and market structure. He is particularly interested in multi-channel coordination and examines issues in multi-channel retail, advertising and pricing. He studies how consumers respond to different forms of advertising and how companies can strategically use new advertising channels to connect with their consumers. He also examines the dynamics of e-commerce marketplaces and their interaction with traditional retail. More recently, he is interested in understanding consumer behavior in the presence of shared urban mobility systems.

Dr. Abhishek has published in top management journals like Operations Research, Marketing Science, Management Science, MIS Quarterly and Journal of Interactive Marketing. He is also a recipient of the Google Faculty research award, Adobe Faculty grant, Flipkart research grand and has won several awards like the ISA-INFORMS best paper award, CIST best student paper award and the ISS Nunamaker-Chen Dissertation award.

His research has been cited in popular press outlets such as the Sloan Management Review, NY Times, Forbes, Fortune, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Seattle times and Wall Street Journal. He has worked with several firms including McKinsey & Co., Sequoia Capital, Pirates, LEGO, Adobe, FICO, IBM and Omnicom and advises hi-tech startups.

He received a PhD in Operations and Information Management and a M.A. in Statistics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Kanpur. Before joining UC Irvine, Dr. Abhishek was an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University.

Education

• PhD in OPIM, University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
• MA in Statistics, University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
• BTech in Computer Science, Indian Institute of Technology - Kanpur

Research Interests

• Technology-enabled markets
• Digital Advertising
• Retail
• Online Platforms
• Machine-Learning
• Causal Inference

Book Chapter

• Chapter: Omni-Channel Customer Behavior in Retail Banking, with B. Li, Operations in an Omni-Channel World. Eds. A. G. Moreno, S. Gallino, Springer, Oct 2019

Publications

• V. Abhishek, M. Dogan and A. Jacquillat, Strategic Timing and Pricing In On-Demand Platforms, accepted at Management Science
• V. Abhishek, J. A. Guajardo and Z. Zhang, Business Models in the Sharing Economy: Manufacturing Durable Goods in the Presence of Peer-To-Peer Rental Markets, conditionally accepted at Information Systems Research
• M. Zhou, G. Dan, V. Abhishek and B. Li, When the Bank comes to you: Channel Adoption and Choice in an Omni-Channel Context, Information Systems Research 31(1):176-197 (2020)
• J. Gong, V. Abhishek and B. Li, Examining the Impact of Contextual Ambiguity on Search Advertising Keyword Performance: A Topic Model Approach, MIS Quarterly (42: 3) pp.805-829 (2018)
• P. Achananuparp, E. P. Lim, and V. Abhishek, Does Journaling Encourage Healthier Choices? Analyzing Healthy Eating Behaviors of Food Journalers. Proc. of the Int. Conf. on Digital Health (DH ’18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 35–44 (2018)
• P. Achananuparp, E. P. Lim, V. Abhishek, and T. Yun, Eat & Tell: A Randomized Trial of Random-Loss Incentive to Increase Dietary Self-Tracking Compliance, Proc. of the Int. Conf. on Digital Health (DH ’18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 45–54. (2018)
• P. C. Verhoef, A. T. Stephen, P. K. Kannan, X. Luo, M. Andrews, Y. Bart, H. Datta, N. M. Fong, D. L. Hoffman, M. Hu, T. P. Novak, W. M. Rand and Y. Zhang, Consumer Connectivity in a Complex, Technology-Enabled, and Mobile-Oriented World with Smart Products, Journal of Interactive Marketing 40: 1-8 (2017)
• V. Abhishek, K. Jerath and Z. J. Zhang, Reselling or Agency Selling: Channel Structures in Electronic Retail, Management Science 62:8, 2259-2280 (2016)
• V. Abhishek, K. Hosanagar and P. S. Fader, On Aggregation Bias in Sponsored Search: Existence and Implications, Marketing Science 34(1): 59-77 (2015)
• Y.C. Kato-Lin, R. Padman, J. Downs, V. Abhishek, Evaluating Consumer m-Health Services for Promoting Healthy Eating: A Randomized Field Experiment, AMIA Sym. Proc. 2015:1947-1956 (2015)
• V. Abhishek and K. Hosanagar, Optimal Bidding in Multi-Item Multi-Slot Sponsored Search Auctions, Operations Research 61(4): 855-873 (2013)
• V. Abhishek and K. Hosanagar, Keyword generation for search engine advertising using semantic similarity between terms, Proc. of Int. Conf. on E-Commerce (ICEC ’07), ACM, New York, NY, USA, 89–94 (2007)
• V. Abhishek, A. Mukerjee and H. Karnick, Artificial ontogenesis of controllers for robotic behavior using VLG GA, Proc. of. IEEE Int. Conf. on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC ‘03), Washington, DC, pp. 3376-3383 vol.4 (2003)
• N. Kumar, V. Abhishek and G. Gautam, A novel approach for person authentication and content-based tracking in videos using kernel methods and active appearance models,
• Proc. of. IEEE Int. Conf. on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC ‘03), Washington, DC, pp. 1384-1389 vol.2 (2003)