Thomas P. Novak

Marketing in Hypermedia Computer-Mediated Environments: Conceptual Foundations

The authors address the role of marketing in hypermedia computer-mediated environments (CMEs). Their approach considers hypermedia CMEs to be large-scale (i.e., national or global) networked enviro...

Information Privacy in the Marketspace: Implications for the Commercial Uses of Anonymity on the Web.

While there is no question that the commercial development of the World Wide Web is still in its infancy and growing rapidly, this development faces a serious barrier to ultimate commercialization. In this article we develop the argument that the primary barrier to the successful commercial development of the Web is the current lack of consumer trust in this new commercial medium. This lack of trust is engendered primarily by the industrys documented failure to respond satisfactorily to mounting consumer concerns over information privacy in electronic, networked environments. We examine how such concerns are affecting the growth and development of consumer-oriented commercial activity on the World Wide Web and investigate the implications of these concerns for potential industry response. In the short run, the commercial development of the Web depends on giving consumers the opportunity to be anonymous when engaging in information exchanges and online transactions. Ultimately, however, commercial Web pro...

Has the Internet become indispensable

As was empirically demonstrated in [3], “the adoption rate of the Internet has exceeded that of earlier mass communication technologies by several magnitudes,” making it an “irreversible” innovation. Studies have also shown that for the generation of U.S.-based youth that grew up with the Internet, it is gradually displacing television as their main source of entertainment, communication, and education [6]. Here, we explore how the Internet has become indispensable to people in their daily lives and develop a conceptual model allowing us to address the associated research questions. The idea is that the Internet has become so embedded in the daily fabric of people’s lives that they simply cannot live without it. How is the Internet indispensable and in what ways? For which groups of people is it indispensable, for what tasks, and how has BY DONNA L. HOFFMAN, THOMAS P. NOVAK, AND ALLADI VENKATESH

Internet and Web use in the U.S.

to base critical business decisions. A variety of studies have suggested that the demographic characteristics of individuals are highly correlated with their use of the Internet. For example, previous research suggests that Internet use is related to gender, education, income, race, occupation, and even geographic region and that males are generally more likely than females to use the Net, people with higher socioeconomic status are more likely to use the Net, and whites are more likely to use the Net [21, 22]. Recent research also suggests that the demographics of Internet use are shifting, so the Internet appears to be going more “mainstream” in its demographic makeup, and that this trend is likely to continue as the Internet moves toward critical mass as a commercial medium [9]. Our objectives in this article are twofold:

Combining Revealed and Stated Preferences Data

Our objective is to develop a unifying framework for the incorporation of different types of survey data in individual choice models. We describe statistical methodologies that combine multiple sources of data in the estimation of individual choice models and summarize the current state of the art of data combination methods that have been used with market research data. The most successful applications so far have combined revealed and stated preference data. We discuss different types of market and survey data and provide examples of research contexts in which one might wish to combine them. Although these methods show a great deal of promise and have already been used successfully in a number of applications, several important research issues remain. A discussion of these issues and directions for further research conclude the paper.

The"Right" Consumers for Better Concepts: Identifying Consumers High in Emergent Nature to Develop New Product Concepts

While much research has emphasized improving current new product concept techniques, little work has focused on trait-based approaches that specify which consumers are the “right” ones to use in the new product development process, particularly in the consumer goods industry. The authors propose that the right consumers to use possess what they call an “emergent nature,” defined as the unique capability to imagine or envision how concepts might be developed so that they will be successful in the mainstream marketplace. The authors draw on research on personality theory and information-processing styles to support their conceptualization and develop and validate a highly reliable scale to measure emergent nature (Study 1). In subsequent multipart studies, they show in both group (Studies 2a–2c) and individual (Studies 3a and 3b) settings across two distinct product categories that consumers high in emergent nature are able to develop product concepts that mainstream consumers find significantly more appealing and useful than concepts developed by typical, lead user, or even innovative consumers.

The Fit of Thinking Style and Situation: New Measures of Situation-Specific Experiential and Rational Cognition

Decades of research provide strong evidence that consumers process information in two distinct and qualitatively different ways, rational and experiential. However, little research has addressed situational influences on thinking style, and there have been no attempts to simultaneously measure and validate two-dimensional situation-specific thinking. We develop and validate a new instrument for measuring situation-specific thinking style using performance tasks, consumer Web activities, and differing motivations. We establish differences in thinking style across types of tasks and motivations, and congruence effects related to the fit of situation-specific thinking style and the nature of the task on performance and attitudinal outcomes. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Locus of Control, Web Use, and Consumer Attitudes Toward Internet Regulation

The authors empirically examine how locus of control, an important consumer behavior construct, differentiates among consumers’ Web use in a marketing policy context and argue that consumers’ general expectancies as to whether they or others control events can predict their Web use and their beliefs regarding the regulation of content on the Internet. The authors test a series of hypotheses pertaining to locus of control and consumer behavior on the Internet among consumers classified as “internals” or “externals” using data collected in conjunction with the tenth WWW User Survey of the Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center, Georgia Institute of Technology. The authors also assess scale measurement properties using single-factor confirmatory factor analysis models and test hypotheses using a correlational and structural equation modeling framework.

An Optimal Contact Model for Maximizing Online Panel Response Rates

We develop and test an optimization model for maximizing response rates for online marketing research survey panels. The model consists of (1) a decision tree predictive model that classifies panelists into “states” and forecasts the response rate for panelists in each state and (2) a linear program that specifies how many panelists should be solicited from each state to maximize response rate. The model is forward looking in that it optimizes over a finite horizon during which S studies are to be fielded. It takes into account the desired number of responses for each study, the likely migration pattern of panelists between states as they are invited and respond or do not respond, as well as demographic requirements. The model is implemented using a rolling horizon whereby the optimal solution for S successive studies is derived and implemented for the first study. Then, as results are observed, an optimal solution is derived for the next S studies, and the solution is implemented for the first of these studies, etc. The procedure is field tested and shown to increase response rates significantly compared to the heuristic currently being used by panel management. Further analysis suggests that the improvement was due to the predictive model and that a “greedy algorithm” would have done equally well in the field test. However, further Monte Carlo simulations suggest circumstances under which the model would outperform the greedy algorithm.

Residual Scaling: An Alternative to Correspondence Analysis for the Graphical Representation of Residuals from Log-Linear Models

The method of correspondence analysis, applied to a contingency table, provides a graphical representation of departures from the independence model. Generalized correspondence analysis has been proposed as a way of graphically representing departures from models other than independence. However, generalized correspondence analysis does not necessarily decompose a chi-square statistic for departures from non-independence models. We propose a method, called residual scaling (RESCAL), that does decompose chi-square and can also be used for decomposing the difference between any two log-linear models. The decomposition is represented graphically for ease of interpretation. RESCAL analysis results differ in interpretation from correspondence analysis results, although the differences have some advantages over correspondence analysis. RESCAL is demonstrated empirically with data concerning earned doctorates conferred in the United States from 1960 through 1982.