We develop and test hypotheses regarding the role of social contagion in customer adoption of new sales channels. We examine two aspects of social contagion (local contagion and homophily) and two channels (Internet and bricks-and-mortar store). Drawing on diffusion theory, we propose a conceptual framework that identifies the factors associated with new channel adoption.
It is becoming increasingly easier for researchers and practitioners to collect eye tracking data during online preference measurement tasks. We develop a dynamic discrete choice model of information search and choice under bounded rationality, that we calibrate using a combination of eye-tracking and choice data. Our model extends the directed cognition model of Gabaix et al. (2006) by capturing fatigue, proximity effects, and imperfect memory encoding and by estimating individual-level parameters and partworths within a likelihood-based, hierarchical Bayesian framework.
This paper studies the competition between Web 2.0 communities in a game theoretic framework. We model three important features of these institutions: (i) firms' content is usually user-generated; (ii) consumers' content preferences are governed by local network effects, and (iii) consumers have strong tendencies to multi-home. Our analyses reveal that ex-ante identical community sites can acquire differentiated market positions that spontaneously emerge from user-generated content.
During the 2014 EPIC Conference, Allen Batteau and Robert J. Morais led a workshop entitled “Toward Conceptual, Methodological, and Ethical Standards of Practice in Business Anthropology.” This article summarizes the objectives and results of the workshop.
The paper investigates the long-run consequences of multichannel shopping on customers' spending. Using data from a major US catalog company which introduced an online channel, our results validate previous findings that multichannel customers spend more than mono-channel customers in the short run. However, the difference in spending dissipates over time with multichannel customers reverting to their regular consumption pattern in 3 years.
We report the results of a survey conducted in November 2014 in which 29 quantitative marketing scholars from around the world reflected on the present and future of their field. The survey focused on substantive areas, methods and tools, practical and managerial relevance, doctoral training, and promotion and tenure. The results of the survey revealed several general insights on the challenges and opportunities faced by the field of quantitative marketing research.
Of all publications on success in sales appearing in this century and many decades previously, The Challenger Sale has perhaps generated more discussion and controversy among sales leaders, strategic account program directors and strategic account managers than any other. But does this widely read and discussed volume actually represent the breakthrough that Neil Rackham suggests, or is it just an interesting examination of sales that serves mainly as an infomercial for the Corporate Executive Board (sponsor of the research) and its affiliates?
Facebook is rapidly gaining recognition as a powerful research tool for the social sciences. It constitutes a large and diverse pool of participants, who can be selectively recruited for both online and offline studies. Additionally, it facilitates data collection by storing detailed records of its users' demographic profiles, social interactions, and behaviors. With participants' consent, these data can be recorded retrospectively in a convenient, accurate, and inexpensive way.
We comment on Gilovich and colleagues' program of research on happiness resulting from experiential versus material purchases, and critique these authors' interpretation that people derive more happiness from experiences than from material possessions. Unlike goods, experiences cannot be purchased, and possessions versus experiences do not seem to form the endpoints of the same continuum.