Biography

Nelson F. Granados is a Ph.D. candidate in the Information and Decision Sciences Department at the Carlson School of Management, where he also received his M. S. degree in Business Administration. He holds a B.S. degree in Industrial Engineering from Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia. In parallel with his dissertation work, Nelson is pursuing a Ph.D. minor and an M.S. in Applied Economics. His research agenda has been presented at multiple conferences and has already led to several publications, working papers, and research awards. The Carlson School of Management recently ranked first his dissertation proposal in the 2005-2006 fellowship competition. He was consequently nominated and later awarded the University of Minnesota Graduate School Fellowship. For more details, see his homepage.

Background: "Prior to joining the Ph.D. program, I performed multiple marketing management positions for a Northwest Airlines and KLM in Asia, the United States, and the Netherlands. I was also a product manager for enterprise systems and a sales representative at IBM Colombia. Having worked in four continents as a marketer and user of information systems, I am fascinated by the ways in which technology is transforming the world. In particular, I am attracted to the common ways in which the proliferation of electronic commerce affects organizations and people's lives, regardless of where they are located."

Research interests: "My current research interests are related to the strategic and economic consequences of technology-enabled market transparency, defined as the level of information available to market participants. I am building on research that explores information disclosure rules in financial markets, where the concept of ‘transparency' is used to study the effects of information availability on market structure and on the distribution of wealth among investors and intermediaries."

Current research project: "I am particularly interested in how technology-enabled market transparency affects consumers, and the broader implications. I have been closely following the strategic moves of airlines and online travel agencies that have created novel electronic market mechanisms to sell their travel services. Through these mechanisms they strategically select the information they disclose to consumers to induce purchase. I am working on three research projects to uncover the impact of market transparency on consumers, firm strategy, and market structure. The first study is an econometric analysis of a large data set of airline tickets to determine how market transparency impacts consumers' willingness-to-pay in Internet and traditional channels. The second study is the development of an economic model to derive the optimal price and transparency level that firms should adopt to maximize profits. The third study is a theory-building project to uncover the competitive, institutional, and industry-specific forces that, together with information technology (IT), will lead electronic markets to become transparent."

General impressions: "I feel fortunate to be at the Carlson School's Information and Decision Sciences department. Because information systems is a research area that is connected to other disciplines, such as economics and computer science, the task of defining my career niche was complex. Fortunately, I am surrounded by top researchers in the four sub-disciplines of information systems (economics, decision making, organizational theory, and computer science), who have offered unconditional support in this process. In addition, I have great support from researchers in other departments, such as Marketing and Economics."