Mayukh Dass

Consumer decision-making across modern and traditional channels: E-commerce, m-commerce, in-store

Abstract This study investigates the effect of media richness on consumer decision-making and channel choice, and grounds the investigation in media richness theory, task-media fit hypotheses and cognitive cost (behavioral decision theory). Findings from three experiments provide evidence that consumers prefer channels with medium (e.g., e-commerce) and high (e.g., in-store) media richness for carrying out complex decision-making tasks. Findings reveal that consumers are likely to undertake simple decision-making tasks on channels that incorporate low (e.g., m-commerce) levels of media richness. Findings also demonstrate that product type moderates the effect of media richness on perceived channel-task fit, post-purchase evaluation, and channel choice. These insights should prove helpful to managers in managing content across different channels.

Understanding the Drivers of Job Satisfaction of Frontline Service Employees Learning From “Lost Employees”

In this article, we examine the antecedent structure of the terminal level of job satisfaction of frontline service employees who have recently quit a firm. The results from the estimation of a latent, finite-mixture model, using data collected from former employees of a large supermarket chain, point to a two-dimensional heterogeneity among exiting employees. We find systematic variation in the relative importance of the drivers of job satisfaction, such as work environment, personality, and demographics, across employee subgroups. We also find that the threshold level of the terminal satisfaction for exiting employees could be high for some and low for others. These findings stand in contrast to the inverse satisfaction-turnover intent link documented for existing employees and provide new explanations for the observed weakness in the relationship. They are also inconsistent with the attraction-selection-attrition model that argues for a convergence in employee dispositions. We suggest that job satisfaction and turnover models can be enhanced by adopting a utility-theoretic perspective that accommodates variations in the structure and threshold levels of terminal satisfaction. To this end, we provide some guidelines for how exiting rather than existing employees can provide an alternative avenue for diagnosing the quitting process and ultimately improving the predictive power of turnover models. Finally, we suggest that the allocation of employee retention resources based on either a common model of job satisfaction, or assuming a monotonic satisfaction-intent relationship, may be inefficient. Instead, we argue for model-based, group-specific retention programs to reduce frontline service employee turnover.

Social Networks Among Auction Bidders: The Role of Key Bidders and Structural Properties on Auction Prices

Auctions have been studied extensively as an economic marketplace. The economist’s focus is on modeling final sales prices, but the processes that give rise to those outcomes are rarely studied in great detail. This research is intended to provide that complementary perspective. We show how the interactions between bidders in an auction unfold in a dynamic pattern of bids and counter-bids, and thereby over the duration of an auction, create a network structure. The auction network contributes significantly to models of price dynamics and the network predicts final sales prices better than economic (non-network) indicators alone. In addition, network analyses are useful in identifying the key bidders whose actions seem to exert disproportionate influence on other bidders and the final sales prices. Furthermore, the key bidders may be identified very early in an auction process, which has practical implications for the auction house managers and for other bidders.

An investigation of the effects of product recalls on brand commitment and purchase intention

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine how product recalls affect brand commitment and post-recall purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach – The role of consumer and product recall characteristics based on attribution theory is tested using data collected through experiments and analyzed using a type of finite mixture model. Findings – Results indicate varying effects of product recalls on commitment across these four customer groups and a strong effect of affective commitment on post-recall purchase behavior. Originality/value – This paper proposes four types of consumers based on dichotomous levels of affective and calculative commitment, namely, Hard Cores, Don’t-Cares, Lovers and Rationalists, and shows how product recalls affect these consumer groups differently, and how this information assists brand managers in developing post-product recall consumer management strategies.

Brand vulnerability to product assortments and prices

Abstract The assortment of brands that a specific brand competes against varies from one point of sale to another. The competitive landscape changes further because of within-assortment price variations at each location. The joint variation in assortment composition and pricing creates a complex set of scenarios under which a brand needs to compete. In this paper, we develop an approach to assess changes in a brands vulnerability under alternative assortment and price configurations. We specifically propose that, in market environments with high variability in the competitive set and prices, it is more appropriate to assess a brands strength relative to alternative assortment configurations rather than against individual competing brands. We build a model that depicts a brands vulnerability in latent assortment space rather than the traditional brand space. The results from an illustrative model application are used to draw inferences about changes in brand vulnerabilities under shallow and deep promotions.

Introducing Functional Data Analysis to Managerial Science

In this article, we introduce functional data analysis (FDA), a set of statistical tools developed to study information on curves or functions. We review fundamentals of the methodology along with previous applications in other business disciplines to highlight the potential of FDA to managerial science. We provide details of the three most commonly used FDA techniques, including functional principal component analysis, functional regression, and functional clustering, and demonstrate each by investigating measures of firm financial performance from a panel data set of the 1,000 largest U.S. firms by revenues from 1992 to 2008. We compare results obtained from FDA with hierarchical linear modeling and conclude by outlining ideas for future micro- and macro-level organizational research incorporating this methodology.

An Investigation of Value Updating Bidders in Simultaneous Online Art Auctions

Simultaneous online auctions, in which the auction of all items being sold starts at the same time and ends at the same time, are becoming popular especially in selling items such as collectables and art pieces. In this paper, we analyze the characteristics of bidders (Reactors) in simultaneous auctions who update their preauction value of an item in the presence of influencing bidders (Influencers). We represent an auction as a network of bidders where the nodes represent the bidders participating in the auction and the ties between them represent an Influencer-Reactor relationship. We further develop a random effects bilinear model that is capable of handling covariates of both bidder types at the same time and account for higher-order dependence among the bidders during the auction. Using the model and data from a Modern Indian Art auction, we find that Reactors tend to update their values on items that have high preauction estimates, bid on items created by high investment risk artists, bid selectively only on certain items, and are more active in the second half of the auction. Implications for the auction house managers are discussed.

Dynamic Price Forecasting in Simultaneous Online Art Auctions

In recent years, the simultaneous online auction (SOA) has become a popular mechanism for selling heterogeneous items such as antiques, art, furniture, and collectibles. These auctions sell multiple items concurrently to a selected group of bidders who often participate in multiple auctions simultaneously. Such bidder behavior creates a unique competitive environment where bidders compete against each other both within the same auction as well as across different auctions. In this chapter, we present a novel dynamic forecasting approach for predicting price in ongoing SOAs. Our proposed model generates a price forecast from the time of prediction until auction close. It updates its forecasts in real-time as the auction progresses based on newly arriving information, price dynamics and competition intensity. Applying this method to a dataset of contemporary Indian art SOAs, we find high predictive accuracy of the dynamic model in comparison to more traditional approaches. We further investigate the source of the predictive power of our model and find that price dynamics capture bidder competition within and across auctions. The importance of this finding is both conceptual and practical: price dynamics are simple to compute at high accuracy, as they require information only from the focal auction and are therefore a parsimonious representation of different forms of within-auction and between-auction competition.

An examination of innovative consumers’ playfulness on their pre-ordering behavior

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of playfulness on innovative consumers’ pre-order behavior for new products. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon self-congruity theory and early adoption literature, the effects of playfulness and innovativeness on pre-order behavior and the role of self-congruity are tested using four experimental studies that are analyzed using generalized linear model (GLM) and structural equation modeling. Findings Results indicate that playfulness amplifies the advance-purchasing propensity, especially when the pre-launch information cues come from a credible source. Originality/value This paper refines playfulness measurement scales and proposes how both enjoyment- and creativity-based playfulness amplify the purchase intention among innovative consumers. The results assist product managers in developing advanced marketing plans before a new product is launched.

The Long-Term Impact of Service Failure and Recovery:

This article examines customers’ short-term attitudinal and long-term behavioral responses to service failures and recovery efforts. Our data from a tracking study of casual dining restaurants customers indicate that those who did not experience any failure were more satisfied than those who experienced successful recovery following a failure. The satisfactory recovery group, in turn, was more satisfied than customers who either did not complain or were not successfully recovered following their complaints. Importantly, the pattern of brand patronage over the medium and long run differed substantially from the short-term variation in satisfaction levels across the four customer groups. In the medium term, the brand visitation frequency for those who never experienced failure was similar to those of customers who were successfully recovered. The visitation frequencies of customers who did not complain or were not successfully recovered were lower. However, over the long run, the visitation pattern changed substantially, and those who never experienced failure had higher brand patronage frequency than all the three remaining groups that behaved relatively similarly. These results suggest that customers make a distinction between the qualities of the core service and the recovery effort. Although successful recovery temporarily compensates for core failure, its positive influence dissipates over time. In the longer term, customers’ complaining behavior and the firm’s recovery efforts matters less and customers’ brand patronage depends largely on whether or not they experienced core service failure. Nevertheless, firms can recover their investments in service recovery because of increased brand patronage in the medium term.