Costello Research Competitive Strategy

With the right operational strategy, transitioning from selling products to delivering services can be the right move for profits, people and the planet. Ioannis Bellos, associate professor of information systems and operations management (OM)  and MBA Program Director at the Donald G. Costello College of Business, and Hang Ren, associate professor of OM at Costello, have published research exploring how servicization can live up to its massive potential. 

The executive director of George Mason’s government contracting research center highlights “agile acquisition” as the key to beefing up national defense.

To stay competitive in the war for talent, tech companies must weigh secrecy against specificity when crafting job ads. Are they disclosing too much?

Even famously neutral news organizations are not immune to the pressure to compete for clicks in the increasingly partisan online marketplace.

When government contractors merge, comparing their customers can predict a lot about how investors will respond to the deal.

A new "mega-study" consisting of dozens of simultaneous, independently designed experiments shows that competitions have no automatic impact on our morality.

Not all pharmaceutical companies are equally well-suited to surf the sea change that’s happening in healthcare.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to growing a franchise business. But stock market reactions to companies’ strategic moves can give you more than a clue.

Mehmet Altug, an associate professor of operations management, has been researching retail returns policies for a decade. The issue has recently come to prominence, as the lenient policies of online retailers have led to skyrocketing return rates (now exceeding 20 percent in the U.S.). Altug’s various academic papers delve into the difficult trade-offs retailers face when setting returns policies. While there are no easy answers, Altug’s research identifies factors that can help retailers achieve more strategic flexibility.

​​​​​​​A paper co-authored by Jessica Hoppner, associate marketing professor at Mason, has been named a finalist for the American Marketing Association’s prestigious Weitz-Winer-O’Dell Award.