Anandhi Bharadwaj

Goizueta Endowed Chair in Electronic Commerce and Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management Emory University, Goizueta Business School

Atlanta GA

Information systems expert bringing a wide range of development and executive training experience to the classroom.

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Biography

Professor Bharadwaj joined Goizueta after completing her PhD in Management Information Systems with a minor in Computer Science, from Texas A&M University. She also holds an MBA and a BS degree in Mathematics. Prior to pursuing her doctoral studies, Anandhi worked as an information systems consultant at NIIT, a worldwide IT consulting firm, and was responsible for IT systems development and executive training.

Anandhi's research examines the adoption, use, and impact patterns associated with technological change. Her work has made impactful contributions in the areas of business value and impact of information technology, digital business strategies, healthcare technologies, and technology outsourcing. In her dissertation research, she proposed an artificial intelligence (AI) based architecture for dynamic scheduling based on an analysis of cardiac catheterizations in a large hospital in Texas. The hybrid system architecture combined opportunistic planning with reason maintenance.

Anandhi previously served as the Vice Dean of Faculty and Research. She has also served as Department Editor for the IS track in Management Science, Senior Editor for Information Systems Research, and Associate Editor of MIS Quarterly and the Journal of AIS. Her research has been published in journals such as Management Science, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Organization Science Journal of MIS, Production and Operations Management, HBR, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

Education

Texas A&M University

PhD

Information Systems

1993

Institute of Rural Management , Gujarat, India

Masters (Post Graduate Diploma)

Management

1985

Madras University

Mathematics; Statistics and Physics

1983

Areas of Expertise

Business Model Evolution

Digital Business Strategy

Internet commerce

Business value of IT

Digital Transformation

Publications

The Effects of Information Nudges on Consumer Usage of Digital Services under Three-Part Tariffs

Journal of Management Information Systems

2022

We develop a dynamic model to examine how information nudges influence digital services’ consumer usage behavior and welfare under a three-part tariff structure. We study two types of information nudging: nudging through full and nudging through partial information provision. In the former, information nudges are provided to inform consumers of their usage status at every decision point in a billing cycle. In contrast, in the latter, consumers are nudged at one or more decision points within a billing cycle but not throughout the billing cycle. Our model considers two dimensions of consumer heterogeneity: inattentiveness and preference. Furthermore, our model investigates an important but under-investigated design element of information nudges, namely, the timing of the information nudges. We find that (1) nudging through information provision influences inattentive consumers’ usage decisions and improves consumption efficiency, (2) consumers’ welfare gains from full information nudging depict an inverted-U shape contingent on consumers’ preference heterogeneity, and (3) the timing of nudging matters. Our findings provide managerial implications for the design of information nudging strategies and procedures. Finally, we empirically illustrate the analytical results in the context of consumers’ mobile data usage behavior.

Drug Abuse and the Internet: Evidence from Craigslist

Management Science

2020

The United States is in the midst of a drug overdose epidemic. Although the online availability of drugs has been a growing concern with considerable speculation that digital platforms are contributing to this epidemic, empirical assessments have been lacking. To quantify this impact, we rely on the phased rollout of Craigslist, a major online platform, as an experimental setup. Applying a difference-in-differences approach on a national panel data set for all counties in the United States from 1997 to 2008, we find a 14.9% increase in drug abuse treatment admissions, a 5.7% increase in drug abuse violations, and a 6.0% increase in drug overdose deaths after Craigslist’s entry. The impacts of Craigslist’s entry are larger among women, whites, Asians, and the more educated. Further, the unintended consequences of Craigslist are more likely to accrue in larger, wealthier areas with initially low levels of drug abuse. These findings raise the possibility that the marked growth in U.S. drug abuse may have partially stemmed from the wider availability of illicit drugs online at the very beginning of its evolution.

Empirical Analysis of IP Rights Sharing in Software Contracts

MIS Quarterly

2017

Software development outsourcing (SDO) contracts are plagued with ex post opportunism and underinvestment problems. Property rights theory (PRT) argues that appropriate property rights allocation between vendors and clients can reduce opportunism and incentivize relation-specific investments. We conduct an in-depth content analysis of 171 real SDO contracts and empirically examine how project attributes and contract parties' bargaining power affect the allocation of intellectual property rights (IPR). We find that clients retained more IPR when software development was modularized whereas they shared more IPR with vendors in contracts that incorporated greater use of a vendor's proprietary software. Greater levels of task complexity were associated with more IPR sharing with vendors. We also find that the responsiveness of IPR to project attributes varied across the different types of intellectual assets

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Research Spotlight

Jun 15, 2022

2 min

Check your phone! Emory experts are asking: 'Do Alerts Actually Help Customers Manage Their Data Allowance Better?'

Has your cell phone data ever inexplicably slowed down? Worse still, perhaps you’ve had a mobile bill come in way higher than you expected. Keeping track of your data usage can be tough, especially when the billing mechanisms routinely deployed by digital service providers are often more complex than they seem. Things like three-part tariffs bundle a certain amount of “free” data or services into a fixed monthly fee, with an excess charge payable whenever you go over your allocation. These packages are usually marketed to consumers as being simple as well as attractive (who after all doesn’t love the sound of “free data?”) but in reality, they can be hard for people to manage—and failing to do so, punitive. Exceed your allotted data and you end up with subpar services or unwanted costs. Underutilize your allocation and you’re leaving money on the table. Meanwhile, in a world where we use digital services to do any number of things—from scrolling to streaming to storing and beyond—how can we accurately track just how much of our allowance we’re getting through? To address this, service providers are increasingly sending usage notifications to customers at different points of the billing cycle. These nudges are designed to help us to act in our own best interest: to take stock and modify our usage accordingly. But do they work? It depends, says Anandhi Bharadwaj, Vice-Dean for Faculty and Research at Goizueta. She and her colleagues have published a study that looks at the impact of these nudges, and they’ve found that they do help all customers adjust their behavior to stay within their allowance, irrespective of how attentive or inattentive they might be to their consumption speed in general. But there are provisos. First off, these consumption nudges seem to be significantly more effective with customers who have purchased higher data allowance than those who opt for low-capped packages. Then, the timing of nudges matters. When notifications arrive later in the billing cycle—right before a bill is due, say—they have significantly more impact across the board, says Bharadwaj. Companies should take note. “Ours is the first study to really unpack the efficacy of nudges in the digital services space, and it shows that who and when are important factors that service providers will need to take into account if they want to improve customer experiences.” Interested in knowing more let us help. Anandhi Bharadwaj is an information systems expert bringing a wide range of development and executive training experience to the classroom. Her research examines the adoption, use, and impact patterns associated with technological change. Anandhi is available to speak with reporters simply click on her icon now to arrange an interview today.

Dec 21, 2020

3 min

Exploring the direct link between drug abuse and the internet

Drug overdoses account for a staggering number of deaths in the United States. In 2017 alone, more than 70,000 U.S. citizens died from opioid overdoses, a number that eclipses the death toll due to traffic accidents, gun violence, or HIV in the same year. Among the academic community, media and national organizations such as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), there is a growing consensus that the internet plays a key role in enabling access to illicit drugs in America. As far back as 2005, the DEA referred to the internet as an “open medicine cabinet; a help-yourself pill bazaar to help you feel good.” But until now, the jury has been out about whether online platforms actually drive substance abuse among internet users. Research by Anandhi Bharadwaj, vice dean for faculty and research and Roberto C. Goizueta Endowed Chair in Electronic Commerce, along with doctoral candidate Jiayi Liu 22PhD, casts compelling new light on this issue. Their paper, Drug Abuse and the Internet: Evidence from Craigslist, was published in March 2020. By using data from Craigslist, one of the largest online platforms for classified advertisements, the researchers found a significant uptick in drug abuse in areas where Craigslist had become active in the last decade or so. Launched in San Francisco in 1995, Craigslist is a location-specific site that has been spreading to different U.S. cities in a staggered fashion since 2000. As the site has grown, so too have the number of illicit, user behaviors that exist in tandem with the many positive services it offers. Among these are prostitution and the sale of controlled or illicit drugs. The internet: a pipeline for narcotics Historically the sale and purchase of illegal drugs has happened in physical spaces—streets and urban areas prone to certain boundaries and limitations, not to mention the risk of arrest or potential violence. The internet has changed the game in two key ways. First, there is the simple mechanism of buyer-seller matching. Dealers and buyers transact online, which is more straightforward, faster and cuts through many of the risks associated with physical interaction. Simply put, it’s easy to buy drugs online. Second, there is the issue of anonymity. Research has documented how human beings behave differently when we believe our identity is shielded from others. We are prone to take more risks under the cloak of anonymity. Working off these two premises, Bharadwaj and Liu hypothesized that the internet not only facilitates the sale and purchase of drugs—it must also proactively spur supply and demand. To put this to the test, they documented the U.S. cities and counties where Craigslist has become operational since 2000 and then analyzed three other key variables: total number of people admitted into drug treatment facilities in different counties between 1997 and 2008, county-level drug abuse violations, and number of deaths caused by overdose per county. Eager to understand how this new access to drugs online might also be impacting people at a demographic and socioeconomic level, the researchers merged this data with statistics on age, ethnicity and poverty from the U.S. Census Bureau. Additionally, the authors compiled information about income and unemployment, crime and arrests from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the FBI respectively. What they found was stunning. Not only is there a marked increase in drug-related treatments (14.9 percent), violations (5.7 percent) and deaths (6.0 percent) wherever Craigslist becomes operational in a city or county; the momentum of increasing drug abuse also continues to grow over time in that area. And that’s not all. Economic disadvantages—poverty, unemployment and lower standards of education—are typically associated with a higher risk of substance abuse. But the findings suggest that in fact it’s the wealthier, higher-educated groups—especially among whites, Asians, and women—that are more likely than others to engage in drug abuse once Craigslist starts operating in an area. In fact, they conclusively found an uptick in this kind of behavior where crime and drug abuse had been less prevalent previously. In other words, where drugs are becoming readily available online, there is a dramatic increase in new and first-time users. If you are interested in learning more or if you are a journalist looking to cover this research – then let our experts help. Professor Anandhi Bharadwaj is the Vice Dean for Faculty and Research and the Goizueta Endowed Chair in Electronic Commerce and Professor of Information Systems, Operations Management. To arrange an interview with – simply click on her icon today.

Jul 25, 2018

1 min

Integrating knowledge in outsourced software development

Despite the prevalence of using outside vendors to handle a company’s software development, little is known about the best way to effectively share the knowledge critical to a project’s success among the client and vendor software team members. In research from Anandhi Bharadwaj, professor of information systems & operations management (ISOM) and Goizueta Term Chair in ISOM, and coauthor Nikhil Mehta (U of Northern Iowa), the duo determined that knowledge integration on outsourced projects is further complicated by the uncertainty often inherent in software development. Bharadwaj and Mehta analyzed 139 vendor development teams taken from sixteen Indian software companies for their research. The authors found that the manner in which software teams share and protect the information resources they have impacts the knowledge integration ability of the team. Since software teams operate under conditions of resource scarcity and dependence, team leaders need to ensure that their software development teams have not only the requisite technical skills but also the ability to import needed skills and knowledge from external sources and share it effectively within the team. An important implication of Bharadwaj and Mehta’s research is that organizations should develop holistic performance appraisal policies that assess software developers for both intergroup and within-group activities. Source:

In the News

Do Alerts Actually Help Customers Manage Their Data Allowance Better?

Emory University Goizueta Business School online

2022-04-25

These nudges are designed to help us to act in our own best interest: to take stock and modify our usage accordingly. But do they work? It depends, says Anandhi Bharadwaj, Vice-Dean for Faculty and Research at Goizueta. She and her colleagues have published a study that looks at the impact of these nudges, and they’ve found that they do help all customers adjust their behavior to stay within their allowance, irrespective of how attentive or inattentive they might be to their consumption speed in general.

When Companies Want to Innovate, But Investors Won’t Let Them

Harvard Business Review online

2018-08-21

Businesses understand the power of digital innovations to reshape industries and markets. Yet, time and again, they have struggled to innovate with new and disruptive technologies.

Getting More Women Coders Into Open Source

Dice online

2015-10-06

Diversity remains an issue in tech firms across the nation, with executives and project managers publicly upset over a lack of women in engineering and programming roles. Multiple explanations for the gender gap persist; some point accusing fingers at the country’s educational pipeline, while others say that the culture within tech companies discourages women from participating more fully.