It is increasingly apparent that the financial value of a firm depends on intangible assets (e.g., brands, customers, employees, knowledge) that are not on the balance sheet. In this paper, we focus on the most critical aspect of a firm—its customers. Specifically, we demonstrate how valuing customers makes it feasible to value firms, including high growth firms with negative earnings.
The authors propose and test a new "polyhedral" choice-based conjoint analysis question-design method that adapts each respondent's choice sets on the basis of previous answers by that respondent. Polyhedral "interior-point" algorithms design questions that quickly reduce the sets of partworths that are consistent with the respondent’s choices. To identify domains in which individual adaptation is promising (and domains in which it is not), the authors evaluate the performance of polyhedral choice-based conjoint analysis methods with Monte Carlo experiments.
Product Management, 4th ed., by Lehmann and Winer is a defining text that covers three major tasks facing today's product mangers: analyzing the market, developing objectives and strategies for the product or service in question, and making decisions about price, advertising, promotion, channels of distribution and service. Product Management utilizes the familiar Marketing Plan as the unifying framework for its lessons, and takes a "hands-on" approach toward preparing graduates to assume the position of product manager.
The present study sought to examine the relationship between managers' perceptions of employee motivation and performance appraisal by surveying managers and employees in three distinct cultural regions (North America, Asia, and Latin America) within a single global organization. Although the patterns of employee self-perceptions did not vary across the six countries sampled, three distinct cultural patterns emerged in the theories managers held about their subordinates.
In this paper, we examine the relationship between people's actual interpersonal sensitivity (such as their ability to identify deception and to infer intentions and emotions) and their perceptions of their own sensitivity. Like prior scholars, we find the connection is weak or non-existent and that most people overestimate their social judgment and mind-reading skills. Unlike previous work, however, we show new evidence about who misunderstands their sensitivity and why.
Studies of the relationship between human resource management and establishment performance have heretofore focused on the manufacturing sector. Using a unique longitudinal dataset collected through site visits to branch operations of a large bank, the author extends that research to the service sector. Because branch managers had considerable discretion in managing their operations and employees, the HRM environment could vary greatly across branches and over time. Site visits provided specific examples of managerial practices that affected branch performance.
Recent field and laboratory studies have shown that, although extensive choice is initially appealing, it may hinder motivation to buy and decrease subsequent satisfaction with purchased goods. The following investigation examines whether these findings generalize to employees who are making decisions about whether to invest in 401(k) retirement savings plans.
Organizations worldwide use contact centers as an important channel of communication and transaction with their customers. This paper describes a contact center with two channels, one for real-time telephone service, and another for a postponed call-back service offered with a guarantee on the maximum delay until a reply is received. Customers are sensitive to both real-time and call-back delay and their behavior is captured through a probabilistic choice model. The dynamics of the system are modeled as an M/M/N multiclass system.
Motivated by practices in customer contact centers, we consider a system that offers two modes of service: real-time and postponed with a delay guarantee. Customers are informed of anticipated delays and select their preferred option of service. The resulting system is a multiclass, multiserver queueing system with state-dependent arrival rates.