Seungjin Whang

Who is Seungjin Whang?

Whang’s research interest is in supply chain management and the economics of information systems. He studied how demand information may be distorted in a supply chain, and what impacts a secondary market (where retailers exchange excess inventories) has on a supply chain. He has also addressed various pricing issues in a congestion-prone facility. For example, he studied the optimal priority prices in a queueing system where users have their private information about the benefit, time value and service requirement. Also, he analyzed the menu of fixed-up-to tariffs structure commonly used for mobile phone service.

Seungjin Whang is the Jagdeep and Roshni Singh Professor of Operations, Information, and Technology, Stanford Business School. He obtained bachelor of engineering at Seoul National University, Korea (1974), master of arts (1983), master of science (1985), and PhD (1988), at the University of Rochester. He has been on the faculty of the Stanford Business School since 1987. His research interests include supply chain management and economics of information technology. He has published widely in academic journals including Management Science, Operations Research, and Information Systems Research (ISR). In 2005 his paper "Information Distortion in a Supply Chain: The Bullwhip Effect," coauthored with H. Lee and P. Padmanabhan (1997), was elected to be one of “top ten most influential” papers in Management Science in its 50 years of publications history. In the same year he was elected as one of the world’s 42 most respected management professors by The International Institute of Management. During 2006-2008 he served as senior editor to Information Systems Research. He teaches various courses in Supply Chain Management and has prepared cases on Harrah’s, OnStar, POSCO, SAP R/3, Seven Eleven Japan, Toyota, and TSMC. He won Honorable Mention in Distinguished Teaching Award at the Stanford GSB in 1995-1996. At Stanford, he serves as codirector of Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum and the Stanford-NUS Executive Program.