About

Rong (Rachel) Chen is a Professor at the Graduate School of Management, University of California, Davis. Her research expertise lies at the intersection of pricing, valuation uncertainty, distribution channels, healthcare management, and service scheduling. Her scholarly work has been widely published in leading academic journals, including Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Marketing Science, Production and Operations Management, and Operations Research. Chen earned her Ph.D. in operations management from Cornell University. Prior to her current role at UC Davis, she served on the faculty at the University of California, Riverside and held a visiting professorship at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. In addition to her research, she is deeply involved in the academic community, currently serving as a senior editor for Production and Operations Management. She has also held associate editor positions for Manufacturing and Service Operations Management and the Decision Science Journal. Her contributions to the field have been recognized with numerous honors, including multiple Best Paper Awards and several awards for editorial excellence.

Research topics

• Mathematics
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Business
• Economics
• Mathematical optimization
• Agronomy
• Biology
• Computer network
• Operations research
• Horticulture
• Industrial organization
• Botany
• Microeconomics
• Marketing

Selected publications

• Selling Professional Products with Consumer Uncertainty in Expertise Advancement

  Manufacturing & Service Operations Management · 2026-04-20

  articleSenior author

  Problem definition: For professional products, such as musical instruments and sports gear, a consumer’s quality preference is positively associated with the consumer’s expertise level. A novice who initially chooses a low-quality product over a high-quality one may have incentive to upgrade if experiencing expertise advancement after professional training. This paper examines a firm’s strategies to sell professional products in two periods, training and posttraining, between which consumers’ expertise levels advance with uncertainty. Methodology/results: Using a game-theoretic model, we find that consumer uncertainty about expertise advancement allows the firm to expand product line and implement expertise-based intertemporal segmentation in selling a line of professional products. In addition, the firm can implement ex ante market segmentation, selling products of different qualities to consumers with different quality preferences before their training starts. Our analysis reveals the innate conflict between these two types of segmentation so that the firm may forego the opportunity of market segmentation and implement intertemporal segmentation only. Interestingly, offering a trade-in credit facilitates intertemporal segmentation and encourages the firm to offer a product line, whereas a buyback program facilitates market segmentation instead. In addition, the total consumer surplus increases whenever trade-in credit enables upgrading, and otherwise, it deteriorates or remains the same. Finally, we find that the firm is more likely to offer a product line when selling to myopic consumers, and consumer myopia may hurt firm profit. Managerial implications: Marketers of professional goods can strategically facilitate and meanwhile, profit from consumer upgrading. Also, whereas a buyback guarantee is commonly used in a regular goods market to cope with buyer uncertainty, a trade-in program is often a better option in a professional goods market. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2024.1341 .

  PublisherDOI

• Vertical Competition on a Common Platform

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Vertical Competition on a Common Platform

  Marketing Science · 2025-05-27 · 1 citations

  article

  We investigate how a platform decides on the provision and pricing of its infrastructure for vertically differentiated vendors when facing vendors’ strategic reactions.

  PublisherDOI

• ESG in Platform Markets

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• “A Little More Gravitas”: Why Correctional Health Care Workers Value Third-Party Certifications

  Corrections · 2024-11-08 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Strategic fit revelation with advertising

  Decision Support Systems · 2023-10-10 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Characterization of <i>Ralstonia pseudosolanacearum</i> Diversity and Screening Tomato, Pepper, and Eggplant Resistance to Manage Bacterial Wilt in South Asia

  PhytoFrontiers™ · 2023 · 8 citations

  • Political Science
  • Biology
  • Horticulture

  In South Asia, bacterial wilt pathogens in the Ralstonia solanacearum species complex (RSSC) impose major constraints on eggplant, tomato, and pepper production. To improve the efficacy of bacterial wilt management, the goals of this study were to (i) conduct a survey of RSSC pathogens in Bangladesh and Nepal, (ii) characterize the genetic diversity of these isolates, and (iii) screen 37 tomato, eggplant, and pepper accessions for resistance to six representative isolates from South Asia. We isolated 99 isolates from Bangladesh and 20 isolates from Nepal and determined that all are phylotype I isolates of the Ralstonia pseudosolanacearum species. We sequenced and assembled draft genomes for 25 isolates. Phylogenomic analyses suggest that there is a wide diversity of endemic phylotype I isolates in South Asia and possible introductions of two clonal phylotype I lineages into Bangladesh and Nepal. We contextualize our newly described isolates based on prior reports of RSSC diversity in South Asia and global reports of RSSC pathogens on eggplant and pepper. Greenhouse trials revealed multiple tomato, eggplant, and pepper accessions that exhibit promising levels of resistance to six phylotype I isolates from South Asia. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license .

  PublisherDOI

• Characterization of <i>Ralstonia pseudosolanacearum</i> diversity and screening host resistance to manage bacterial wilt in South Asia

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2023-10-13 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Abstract In South Asia, bacterial wilt pathogens in the Ralstonia solanacearum species complex (RSSC) impose major constraints on eggplant, tomato, and pepper production. To improve the efficacy of bacterial wilt management, the goals of this study were to (1) conduct a survey of RSSC pathogens in Bangladesh and Nepal, (2) characterize the genetic diversity of these isolates, and (3) screen 37 tomato, eggplant, and pepper accessions for resistance to six representative isolates from South Asia. We isolated 99 isolates from Bangladesh and 20 isolates from Nepal and determined that all are phylotype I isolates of the Ralstonia pseudosolanacearum species. We sequenced and assembled draft genomes for 25 isolates. Phylogenomic analyses suggest that there is a wide diversity of endemic phylotype I isolates in South Asia, and possible introductions of two clonal phylotype I lineages into Bangladesh and Nepal. We contextualize our newly described isolates based on prior reports of RSSC diversity in South Asia and global reports of RSSC pathogens on eggplant and pepper. Greenhouse trials revealed multiple tomato, eggplant, and pepper accessions that exhibit promising levels of resistance to six phylotype I isolates from South Asia.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Product Design and Consumer Participation in Circular Business Models

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Managing service shutdowns: Cash refunds or vouchers?

  International Journal of Research in Marketing · 2022-11-23 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Modulating Cell Permeability for Whole-Cell Biocatalysis in Chemical Synthesis (TSE03-D)

  NSF · $179k · 2004–2007

Frequent coauthors

• Hyun‐Dong Shin

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  33 shared

• Long Liu

  26 shared

• Guocheng Du

  Jiangnan University

  25 shared

• Jianghua Li

  Jiangnan University

  24 shared

• Jian Chen

  Jiangnan University

  20 shared

• Lawrence W. Robinson

  Cornell University

  9 shared

• Ruizhi Han

  Jiangnan University

  8 shared

• Haiquan Yang

  Jiangnan University

  7 shared

Awards & honors

• Best Paper Award, Third International Annual Overseas Chines…
• Outstanding Reviewer, Decision Science Journal, 2008
• Small Grant in Aid of Research, Academic Senate Committee on…
• Academic Senate Research Travel Award, 2006-10
• University of California Regents’ Faculty Fellowship, 2004