Nevena T. Koukova

Multiformat Digital Products: How Design Attributes Interact with Usage Situations to Determine Choice

Technological advances enable companies to offer information products such as books, music, and movies in electronic formats, in addition to the traditional physical formats. Although one format may appear more useful and be preferred, consumers may be enticed to consider the unique attributes of all formats if they deliver equally well on salient attributes. The authors investigate the impact of usage situations, relative attribute quality levels of the formats and their interactions on the perception of the formats as perfect or imperfect substitutes or complements, and the purchase likelihood of the bundle of formats. The study demonstrates that when formats have equivalent quality on a salient attribute, consumers perceive the formats as more complementary and are more likely to buy the bundle. This happens because consumers consider more usage situations for the formats and view the bundle as providing greater flexibility for future usages.

Testing the Steve Jobs Hypothesis in a B2B Context Will a Portfolio of Hierarchically Related Technology Products Improve Customer Outcomes

This research examines how the type of information technology (IT) provided among hardware, software, and services—and the degree to which the IT provided is bundled into a solution—influences the levels of satisfaction and loyalty of IT buyers. We refer to the hardware, software, and services offerings jointly as the IT products-services stack, as technology stacks are useful visualizations of how layers of technology products are hierarchically related. We utilize over 36,000 ratings of 68 IT vendors provided by the vendors’ customers to test our research model. The findings indicate that vendors offering products in the lower levels of the IT products-services stack experience higher satisfaction and loyalty ratings (hardware > software > services). Moreover, satisfaction and loyalty ratings are highest when hardware, software, and services are provided together—that is, as an IT solution. An important implication of these findings is that IT solutions benefit both vendors and buyers.

Walking in my shoes: How expectations of role reversal in future negotiations affect present behaviors

The authors focus on repeated distributive negotiations to investigate how expectations of role reversal in future transactions (i.e., a buyer [seller] in one transaction is the seller [buyer] in the next transaction) affect behaviors in the current negotiation. They demonstrate that when negotiators expect a role reversal, they are likely to make more concessions and reach agreement more quickly in the current negotiation. The authors find that this effect is driven by negotiators’ beliefs that they will be able to recover these concessions, because negotiators expect their counterparts to reciprocate in the later transaction when the parties reverse roles. However, when the two negotiations occur in different “accounting” periods (i.e., fiscal periods) or when the negotiating parties do not explicitly communicate their willingness to reverse roles in the future, role-reversal expectations do not affect concession making. Implications arise in both managerial and consumer contexts where the possibility of engaging in future negotiations—as well as reversing roles—exists.

To contribute or not: A goals-based perspective on the effect of industry sales trend and solicitation messages on voluntary contributions to a generic advertising campaign.

Generic advertising campaigns such as “Got Milk?” and “Pork: The Other White Meat” are intended to increase demand for the entire product category rather than demand for a specific brand. This research examines the influence of industry (or product category) sales trend and solicitation messages on voluntary contributions toward such campaigns. Based on the idea that the context in which decisions are made may induce goals, a theoretical framework is developed to suggest that a declining versus an increasing industry sales trend induces different goal orientations. Although contributing to a generic advertising campaign may be viewed as 1 means to achieve the induced goal, the means–goal association is likely to be stronger when the trend is declining rather than increasing. Further, the authors propose that a solicitation message that is congruent with the induced goal and the associated mean is likely to be most effective in increasing contributions relative to incongruent messages. Consistent with the framework, three studies demonstrate that voluntary contributions are higher when the industry sales trend is declining versus increasing, and the solicitation message that reinforces the association between the induced goal and the means to achieve the goal is most effective in increasing contributions.

Role of Nonprice Variables in Intertier Competition

This study examines the role of nonprice variables in intertier competition (low-tier versus high-tier brands). Specifically, we examine the asymmetric impact of nonprice variables, such as features, displays, and prior product experience, on brand choice between tiers. Prior research has established that high-tier brands benefit disproportionately from price promotions. From an analysis of scanner panel data for two product categories, we show that low-tier brands benefit disproportionately more than high-tier brands from enhancements in nonprice variables.