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Full-Text Articles in Business

Autonomous Stores: How Levels Of In-Store Automation Affect Store Patronage, Sabine Benoit, Birgit Altrichter, Dhruv Grewal, Carl-Philip Ahlbom Jun 2024

Autonomous Stores: How Levels Of In-Store Automation Affect Store Patronage, Sabine Benoit, Birgit Altrichter, Dhruv Grewal, Carl-Philip Ahlbom

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Autonomous stores operate without needing on -site staff present to support and monitor customers. This study seeks to determine which autonomous stores are most likely to succeed. By adapting convenience theory and drawing on secondary and qualitative data, the authors identify unique features of autonomous stores that constitute convenience dimensions: options for check -in (access convenience), staff support (assistance convenience), check -out (transaction convenience), and to allow customers to check their itemized baskets (verification convenience). Perceptions of convenience, autonomy, and safety explain the influences of unique store features. A conjoint experiment provides a test of the direct effects of each …


The Science Of Creating Brand Associations: A Continuous Trinity Model Linking Brand Associations To Learning Processes, Christilene Du Plessis, Serena D'Hooge, Steven Sweldens Jun 2024

The Science Of Creating Brand Associations: A Continuous Trinity Model Linking Brand Associations To Learning Processes, Christilene Du Plessis, Serena D'Hooge, Steven Sweldens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The Continuous Trinity Model (CTM) of brand associations integrates 50 years of consumer learning research with recent conceptualizations of consciousness. Three types of brand associations are proposed at the representational level (expectations, meaning, and affect), corresponding to three types of learning at the process level (predictive learning, referential learning, and direct affect transfer). A core proposition derived from research on automaticity holds that the operating conditions of the learning processes vary on a continuum from mostly System 2 for predictive learning to mostly System 1 for direct affect transfer, with referential learning as a mix of the two. The CTM …


Leveraging In-Store Technology And Ai: Increasing Customer And Employee Efficiency And Enhancing Their Experiences, Dhruv Grewal, Sabine Benoit, Stephanie Noble, Abhijit Guha, Carl-Philip Ahlbom, Jens Nordfalt Dec 2023

Leveraging In-Store Technology And Ai: Increasing Customer And Employee Efficiency And Enhancing Their Experiences, Dhruv Grewal, Sabine Benoit, Stephanie Noble, Abhijit Guha, Carl-Philip Ahlbom, Jens Nordfalt

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Due to digital innovations, retailing is undergoing radical changes. Scholars have proposed frameworks to address outcomes of implementing technology e.g., an increased customer experience, efficiency gains, consumer or employee acceptance. Existing frameworks concentrate primarily on the consumer perspective, focus on specific technologies (e.g., AI) and covering the customer journey. In contrast, this paper also focuses on the employee perspective, and how technology influences the employee journey. Since the convenience offered by online retailers puts offline retailers under pressure, this research focuses on in-store technology. Based on a comprehensive review of managerial and academic literature and expert interviews, we propose a …


Immersive Retailing: The In-Store Experience, Henrik Hagtvedt, Chandukala, Sandeep R. Nov 2023

Immersive Retailing: The In-Store Experience, Henrik Hagtvedt, Chandukala, Sandeep R.

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This conceptual article explores why consumers visit physical stores—despite living in a digital-first world—and presents potential ways for retailers to further encourage offline shopping. Although online retailing tends to offer the greatest convenience, brick-and-mortar outlets can offer an immersive in-store experience that combines convenience and interest. The present exposition considers store features within a 2 × 2 typology of convenience and interest and illustrates how these features contribute, or fail to contribute, to immersive in-store experiences. Other factors, such as ambient stimuli that elicit sensory- and aesthetic pleasure, provide additional paths to immersion. The notions raised may serve as a …


Consumers’ Reaction To Corporate Esg Performance: Evidence From Store Visits, Frank Weikai Li, Frank Weikai Li, Roni Michaely Oct 2023

Consumers’ Reaction To Corporate Esg Performance: Evidence From Store Visits, Frank Weikai Li, Frank Weikai Li, Roni Michaely

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using micro-level data on consumer shopping behavior, this paper investigates end-consumers’ attitudes toward firms’ ESG behavior, and as importantly, the ability of consumers to affect firms’ policy concerning sustainability issues. We find that consumers care about firms’ approach toward ESG, and consumers’ behavior can impact firms’ attitudes. Using ESG incidents as a proxy, we find that the reduction in store visits is more pronounced for ESG-conscious consumers, such as those living in democratic counties, and counties with a higher fraction of educated and younger residents. Online shopping interest data yields similar results. Using abnormally hot temperature as a shock to …


Forecasting Airport Transfer Passenger Flow Using Realtime Data And Machine Learning, Xiaojia Guo, Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Bert De Reyck Mar 2023

Forecasting Airport Transfer Passenger Flow Using Realtime Data And Machine Learning, Xiaojia Guo, Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Bert De Reyck

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Problem definition: In collaboration with Heathrow airport, we develop a predictive system that generates quantile forecasts of transfer passengers’ connection times. Sampling from the distribution of individual passengers’ connection times, the system also produces quantile forecasts for the number of passengers arriving at the immigration and security areas. Academic/Practical relevance: Airports and airlines have been challenged to improve decision-making by producing accurate forecasts in real time. Our work is the first to apply machine learning for predicting real-time quantile forecasts in the airport. We focus on passengers’ connecting journeys, which have only been studied by few researchers. Better forecasts of …


Consumers’ Preferences For Ethical Entertainment Consumption: Conceptualization, Development, And Validation Of A Scale, Avirupa Basu, Tamas Makany, Pratap Chandra Mandal, Ashutosh Bishnu Murti Jan 2023

Consumers’ Preferences For Ethical Entertainment Consumption: Conceptualization, Development, And Validation Of A Scale, Avirupa Basu, Tamas Makany, Pratap Chandra Mandal, Ashutosh Bishnu Murti

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Our study describes the conceptualization, development, and validation of a reliable scale to measure the Consumers’ Preferences for Ethical Entertainment Consumption (CPEEC) in the context of OTT platforms. Past literature has addressed Ethical Consumption in various contexts that hold significant importance among consumers. However, there is limited literature on the Ethical Consumption in the domain of OTT entertainment, which is a new and burgeoning field of literature. Conceptualizing and developing a measurement scale for CPEEC will help measure the ethicality of entertainment like films, web shows and reality shows. The CPEEC scale is developed and validated by performing 33 in-depth …


The Impact Of Subscription Programs On Customer Purchases, Raghu Iyengar, Young-Hoon Park, Qi Yu Dec 2022

The Impact Of Subscription Programs On Customer Purchases, Raghu Iyengar, Young-Hoon Park, Qi Yu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Subscription programs have become increasingly popular among a wide variety of retailers and marketplace platforms. Subscription programs give members access to a set of exclusive benefits for a fixed fee upfront. In this paper, we examine the causal effect of a subscription program on customer behavior. To account for self-selection and identify the individual-level treatment effects, we combine a difference-in-differences approach with a generalized random forests procedure that matches each member of the subscription program with comparable non-members. We find subscription leads to a large increase in customer purchases. The effect of subscription is economically significant, persistent over time, and …


The Differential Effects Of Csr And Csi On Consumer Willingness To Pay: Implications For Service Providers And Retailers, Sabine Benoit, Julia Hartmann, Christina Sichtmann, Martin Wetzels Oct 2022

The Differential Effects Of Csr And Csi On Consumer Willingness To Pay: Implications For Service Providers And Retailers, Sabine Benoit, Julia Hartmann, Christina Sichtmann, Martin Wetzels

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Service providers and retailers reselling branded have the discretion to set and adapt prices according to customers’ willingness to pay (WTP). Research often notes markup effects, such that WTP increases in response to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and markdown effects, lowering their WTP for corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). Theory suggests attitude changes to (negative) CSI are stronger than to (positive) CSR, but the extent and whether this difference holds for WTP and across various product types are unknown. Using experimental data, an incentive-compatible measure, and an actual purchase, this article reports on three studies that show that consumers mark up …


Out Of The Trap: Conversion Funnel Business Model, Customer Switching Costs, And Industry Profitability, Niloofar Abolfathi, Andrea Fosfuri, Simone Santamaria Sep 2022

Out Of The Trap: Conversion Funnel Business Model, Customer Switching Costs, And Industry Profitability, Niloofar Abolfathi, Andrea Fosfuri, Simone Santamaria

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research Summary: Across many industries, firms employ a conversion funnel business model to attract customers with basic and affordable products, generate lock-in, and then sell them more advanced and expensive products. We argue that this business model, coupled with high customer switching costs, results in a market outcome characterized by aggressive pricing and reduced profits. A sudden reduction in customer switching costs disrupts the conversion funnel and can eventually increase industrywide prices and profitability, an outcome that contradicts conventional wisdom in strategy research. We develop a stylized model to formalize our ideas and provide supportive evidence using a difference-in-differences methodology …


Mapping Consumer's Cross-Device Usage For Online Search: Mobile- Vs. Pc-Based Search In The Purchase Decision Process, Sangman Han, Jin K. Han, Il Im, Sung In Jung, Jung Won Lee Mar 2022

Mapping Consumer's Cross-Device Usage For Online Search: Mobile- Vs. Pc-Based Search In The Purchase Decision Process, Sangman Han, Jin K. Han, Il Im, Sung In Jung, Jung Won Lee

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The ubiquity of both mobile devices and PC’s has enabled the modern-day consumer to engage in cross-platform online searches as a new norm. The accumulated knowledge on cross-device search behavior to date, however, emanates largely from industry reports and at an aggregate level. To better understand the individual consumer’s purchase decision process, we set out to investigate contingencies of what (subject of search), how (device of choice), and when (stage in the buying decision). To this end, we utilize a panel data consisting of clickstream from mobile and PC searches, coupled with entropy-based metric to chart the breadth and depth …


To Buy Green Or Not To Buy Green: Do Structural Dependencies Block Ecological Responsiveness?, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx, Teemu Kautonen, Henri Hakata Feb 2022

To Buy Green Or Not To Buy Green: Do Structural Dependencies Block Ecological Responsiveness?, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx, Teemu Kautonen, Henri Hakata

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Despite the significant increase in interest in sustainable business practices, decisions on switching to more environmentally friendly input materials are understudied. In a conjoint experiment, we presented 267 Finnish manufacturing firms with an opportunity to acquire an alternative, more ecological input material and investigated their willingness to switch to that material. We find that in general, firms are willing to substitute their current principal input with a more ecological alternative under conditions of functional parity. However, such willingness is contingent on the firm’s value creation structures. Specifically, if the products and processes driving the firm’s value creation rely more on …


Augmented Reality In Retail And Its Impact On Sales, Yong Chin Tan, Sandeep R. Chandukala, Srinivas K. Reddy Jan 2022

Augmented Reality In Retail And Its Impact On Sales, Yong Chin Tan, Sandeep R. Chandukala, Srinivas K. Reddy

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The rise of Augmented Reality (AR) technology presents marketers with promising opportunities to engage customers and transform their brand experience. While firms are keen to invest in AR, research documenting its tangible impact in real-world contexts is sparse. In this article, the authors outline four broad uses of the technology in retail settings. Next, they focus specifically on the use of AR to facilitate product evaluation prior to purchase, and empirically investigate its impact on sales in online retail. Using data obtained from an international cosmetics retailer, they find that AR usage on the retailer’s mobile app is associated with …


How Does Firm Scope Depend On Customer Switching Costs? Evidence From Mobile Telecommunications Markets, Niloofar Abolfathi, Simone Santamaria, Charles Williams Jan 2022

How Does Firm Scope Depend On Customer Switching Costs? Evidence From Mobile Telecommunications Markets, Niloofar Abolfathi, Simone Santamaria, Charles Williams

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the relative advantages of single-product and multiproduct firms following changes in customer switching costs. Whereas a single-product firm can closely tailor offerings to customers' needs, a multiproduct firm can create value for customers in the form of flexibility, allowing them to change between product varieties as preferences evolve without needing to switch providers. We argue that this value-creation mechanism is more effective when customers face high switching costs and explore this prediction in the mobile telecommunications sector, using an exogenous policy change (mobile number portability) that suddenly decreases customer switching costs. Our results reveal that when customer …


Seeking Stability: Consumer Motivations For Communal Nostalgia, Minju Han, George E. Newman Jan 2022

Seeking Stability: Consumer Motivations For Communal Nostalgia, Minju Han, George E. Newman

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Existing research has examined why consumers are drawn to things from their past (personal nostalgia). However, little empirical work has examined why consumers prefer products that were never a part of their personal history (communal nostalgia). For example, a consumer may purchase vinyl records even though she grew up listening to mp3 files. Here, we find that one reason why consumers may be drawn to communal nostalgia is that it can provide a sense of social stability. Drawing on System Justification Theory (Jost & Banaji, British Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 1994 and 1-27), we demonstrate that perceived threats to …


The Curse Of The Original: How And When Heritage Branding Reduces Consumer Evaluations Of Enhanced Products, Minju Han, George E. Newman, Rosanna K. Smith, Ravi Dhar Dec 2021

The Curse Of The Original: How And When Heritage Branding Reduces Consumer Evaluations Of Enhanced Products, Minju Han, George E. Newman, Rosanna K. Smith, Ravi Dhar

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Heritage branding is a common marketing strategy that has been shown to increase product appeal. Here, we find that certain forms of heritage branding can also have potentially negative consequences by leading consumers to react negatively to changes made to the brand’s original, flagship product—even if those changes objectively improve it. We demonstrate that when firms engage in heritage branding that emphasizes a brand’s longevity, consumers evaluate enhanced products less favorably than the original versions of those same products due to decreased perceptions of continuity authenticity. We demonstrate this effect across a variety of product domains (e.g., cosmetics, cookware, and …


Impact Of Different Types Of In-Store Displays On Consumer Purchase Behavior, Yoonju Han, Sandeep R. Chandukala, Shibo Li Oct 2021

Impact Of Different Types Of In-Store Displays On Consumer Purchase Behavior, Yoonju Han, Sandeep R. Chandukala, Shibo Li

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research on consumer in-store shopping behavior does not account for the existence of different types of display locations (e.g. storefront, store rear, secondary, front end cap, rear end cap, and shelf displays). This article focuses on accounting for and understanding the impact of various displays on consumer purchase behavior based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) theory. Specifically, we study how displays closer to and farther from the main location of the focal category influence consumer purchase behavior. Furthermore, within the different types of displays we investigate the impact of specific types of displays on consumer's category purchase and brand choice and …


Enterprise Feedback Management (Efm): What Lies Beyond The Hype?, Lerzan Aksoy, Sabine Benoit, Shreekant G. Joag, Jay Kandampully, Timothy Lee Keiningham, An L. Yan Jan 2021

Enterprise Feedback Management (Efm): What Lies Beyond The Hype?, Lerzan Aksoy, Sabine Benoit, Shreekant G. Joag, Jay Kandampully, Timothy Lee Keiningham, An L. Yan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: The needs of CMOs to utilize a firm's data productively in order to support decision-making combined with the reported benefits of enterprise feedback management solutions has resulted in a rapid rise in usage and valuation of EFM providers. The explicit promise of EFM providers is improved financial performance, whereas there is no scientific research investigating this link. To investigate the link between EFM usage and financial performance is core of this research. Design/methodology/approach: To gain insight into this link survey data from 127 US-based firms on their usage of EFM platforms was linked to their stock market performance over …


Restrict, Clean And Protect: Signaling Consumer Safety During The Pandemic And Beyond, Liliana L. Bove, Sabine Benoit Nov 2020

Restrict, Clean And Protect: Signaling Consumer Safety During The Pandemic And Beyond, Liliana L. Bove, Sabine Benoit

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, customers fear for their health when interacting with service providers. To mitigate this fear service providers are using safety signals directed to consumers and other stakeholders who make organizational assessments. The purpose of this article is to synthesize the range of safety signals in a framework that integrates signaling theory with servicescape elements so as to provide guidance for service providers to assist in their recovery. Design/methodology/approach: The authors extracted examples of how service providers signal safety to their consumers that the risk of infection is low in exchanging with their service. …


Don’T Cut Your Marketing Budget In A Recession, Nirmalya Kumar, Koen Pauwels Aug 2020

Don’T Cut Your Marketing Budget In A Recession, Nirmalya Kumar, Koen Pauwels

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Most companies reduce spending in recessions, especially on marketing items that may be easier to cut (certainly relative to payroll). Right now, advertising agencies are struggling to stay afloat, and Google and Facebook are reporting substantially lower ad revenues as marketing spending dives with the business cycle (cyclical marketing). But that is today’s equivalent of bleeding – an old-fashioned but once widespread treatment that actually reduces the patient’s ability to fight disease. Companies that have bounced back most strongly from previous recessions usually did not cut their marketing spend, and in many cases actually increased it. But they did change …


Customer Deviance: A Framework, Prevention Strategies, And Opportunities For Future Research, Paul W. Fombelle, Clay M. Voorhees, Mason R. Jenkins, Karim Sidaoui, Sabine Benoit, Thorsten Gruber, Anders Gustafsson, Ibrahim Abosag Aug 2020

Customer Deviance: A Framework, Prevention Strategies, And Opportunities For Future Research, Paul W. Fombelle, Clay M. Voorhees, Mason R. Jenkins, Karim Sidaoui, Sabine Benoit, Thorsten Gruber, Anders Gustafsson, Ibrahim Abosag

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The phrase the "customer is always right" assumes that customers provide universal benefits for firms. However, in recent years, customer deviance is on the rise and the academic literature has provided little insight into the drivers of deviance, the actual behaviors, and strategies for how managers can better manage a customer base that cannot be classified as universally benign. This article addresses customer deviance ranging from classic examples like shoplifting to engaging in hostile anti-brand behaviors on social media or even breaking established norms such as trespassing in stores after closing hours. In an effort to spur new research into …


Intuitive Pricing By Independent Store Managers: Challenging Beliefs And Practices, Sabine Benoit, Mario Kienzler, Christian Kowalkowski Jul 2020

Intuitive Pricing By Independent Store Managers: Challenging Beliefs And Practices, Sabine Benoit, Mario Kienzler, Christian Kowalkowski

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Independent store managers-who constitute a substantial portion of the retailing sector-often have limited resources with which to practice the formalized, data-driven pricing processes prescribed in the literature. On that basis, this article addresses how independent convenience store managers arrive at prices and whether their practices are effective. To begin with, 33 interviews with independent convenience store managers identified six common beliefs and ten practices underlying managers' intuitive decision making. Based on point-of-sale survey data from 1,504 customers of two convenience store chains at petrol stations, a second study compared market-oriented managerial beliefs with actual customer price perceptions and buying behaviors. …


Integrating Anticipative Replenishment-Allocation With Reactive Fulfillment For Online Retailing Using Robust Optimization, Yun Fong Lim, Song Jiu, Marcus Ang Jun 2020

Integrating Anticipative Replenishment-Allocation With Reactive Fulfillment For Online Retailing Using Robust Optimization, Yun Fong Lim, Song Jiu, Marcus Ang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Problem definition: In each period of a planning horizon, an online retailer decides on how much to replenish each product and how to allocate its inventory to fulfillment centers (FCs) before demand is known. After the demand in the period is realized, the retailer decides on which FCs to fulfill it. It is crucial to optimize the replenishment, allocation, and fulfillment decisions jointly such that the expected total operating cost is minimized. The problem is challenging because the replenishment-allocation is done in an anticipative manner under a “push” strategy, but the fulfillment is executed in a reactive way under a …


Spillover Effects From Unintended Trials On Attitude And Behavior: Promoting New Products Through Access-Based Services, Adrian Lehr, Marion Buettgen, Sabine Benoit, Katrin Merfeld May 2020

Spillover Effects From Unintended Trials On Attitude And Behavior: Promoting New Products Through Access-Based Services, Adrian Lehr, Marion Buettgen, Sabine Benoit, Katrin Merfeld

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Access-based services (ABS) provide an opportunity for brands to promote their new products by enabling (unintended) trials. However, the mechanisms and impact of consumer exposure to products in ABS and the subsequent potential spillover effects on both the brand and the product perception are largely unknown. Our hypotheses are derived from the information integration theory (IIT) and subsequently tested. Study 1 is a field study investigating an unintended trial moderated by involvement and positive experience. The results indicate the positive effects of the unintended trial on product and brand attitudes, brand purchase intention, and word of mouth. In line with …


Customer Satisfaction And Its Impact On The Future Costs Of Selling, Leon Gim Lim, Kapil R. Tuli, Rajdeep Grewal May 2020

Customer Satisfaction And Its Impact On The Future Costs Of Selling, Leon Gim Lim, Kapil R. Tuli, Rajdeep Grewal

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although scholars have established that customer satisfaction affects different dimensions of firm financial performance, a managerially important but overlooked aspect is its effect on a firm’s future cost of selling (COS), that is, expenditures associated with persuading customers and providing convenience to them. Accordingly, this study presents the first empirical and theoretical examination of the impact of customer satisfaction on future COS. The authors propose that while higher customer satisfaction can lower future COS, the degree to which a firm realizes this benefit depends on its strategy and operating environment. Analyzing almost two decades of data from 128 firms, the …


Retail Format Selection In On-The-Go Shopping Situations, Sabine Benoit, Heiner Evanschitzky, Christoph Teller Jul 2019

Retail Format Selection In On-The-Go Shopping Situations, Sabine Benoit, Heiner Evanschitzky, Christoph Teller

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Consumers patronize different store formats to purchase products. Prior literature describes store and format choices for big, multi-item shopping baskets, but limited insights determine consumers' unique shopping routines when they seek to buy just one or a few items while on the go. Such shopping situations might affect consumers' format selections for both search and experience goods. This study uses multi-attribute utility theory to develop a framework, tested with a scenario-based experiment. For search goods, a format's economic utility (price level, speed) is more important; its functional utility (quality, variety) and psychological utility (atmosphere, service) become less important considerations. Furthermore, …


S-D Logic-Informed Customer Engagement: Integrative Framework, Revised Fundamental Propositions, And Application To Crm, Linda D. Hollebeek, Rajendra K. Srivastava, Tom Chen Jan 2019

S-D Logic-Informed Customer Engagement: Integrative Framework, Revised Fundamental Propositions, And Application To Crm, Linda D. Hollebeek, Rajendra K. Srivastava, Tom Chen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research addressing the micro-foundational theoretical entity of customer engagement (CE) has proliferated in recent years. In parallel, the macro-foundational theory of service-dominant (S-D) logic is thriving. While the fit of CE/S-D logic has been recognized, insight into this theoretical interface remains tenuous, as explored in this paper. We develop an integrative, S-D logic–informed framework of CE comprising three CE foundational processes, which are required (for customer resource integration), or conducive (for customer knowledge sharing/learning) CE antecedents. While customer resource integration, in some form, extends to coincide with CE, customer knowledge sharing/learning can also do so. We also identify three CE …


Perceived Product Creativity And Mental Contrasting: Desired Future On Consumers’ Product Replacement Decisions, Yong Seok Sohn, Kun Woo Yoo, Jin K. Han Jan 2019

Perceived Product Creativity And Mental Contrasting: Desired Future On Consumers’ Product Replacement Decisions, Yong Seok Sohn, Kun Woo Yoo, Jin K. Han

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Consumers often imagine what it would be like to own a new product. Does engaging in such thoughts on desired future impact consumers’ purchase intentions, and if so, what is the underlying process? This study sets out to investigate the posed questions by assessing self-regulatory strategies consumers employ upon pondering on a desired future. Based on Oettingen’s fantasy realization model, the authors take a comparative approach of two modes on desired future—mental contrasting and indulging—en route to purchase intentions. In mental contrasting, an individual juxtaposes a desired future with his/her present reality, whereas, indulging is simply envisioning a desired future. …


What's In A Name? The Impact Of Subcategory Salience On Value Perception And Upgrade Intention For Multicategory Products, Jin K. Han, Seh-Woong Chung, Yong Seok Sohn Dec 2018

What's In A Name? The Impact Of Subcategory Salience On Value Perception And Upgrade Intention For Multicategory Products, Jin K. Han, Seh-Woong Chung, Yong Seok Sohn

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Despite many convergence products rapidly approaching market saturation, academic research yet lags behind with the focus still on the primary demand in the introduction stage. The authors close this gap by focusing on how the labeling of convergence products may impact on value perception and upgrade intentions for these products. Convergence products, which combine multiple categories of products into a single device, create a unique naming dilemma for manufacturers and retailers: Whether to opt for (a) a subordinate label—a lower‐level descriptor or name that embodies its subcategory elements (e.g., smartphone or Apple’s iPhone) or (b) a superordinate label—a higher‐level descriptor …


Mirror, Mirror On The Retail Wall: Self-Focused Attention Promotes Reliance On Feelings In Consumer Decisions, Hannah H. Chang, Iris W. Hung Aug 2018

Mirror, Mirror On The Retail Wall: Self-Focused Attention Promotes Reliance On Feelings In Consumer Decisions, Hannah H. Chang, Iris W. Hung

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The authors propose that increased attention that consumers pay to themselves promotes relative reliance on affective feelings in making decisions. This hypothesis was tested in a variety of consumption domains and decision tasks, including real-life, consequential charitable donations. Consistent support from five experiments with more than 1,770 participants shows that (a) valuations of the decision outcome increase when consumers with high (low) self-focus adopt a feeling-based (reason-based) strategy. The hypothesized effect of self-focus on relative reliance on feelings in decision making is (b) moderated by self-construal. Further, greater attention to the self (c) increases evaluations of products that are affectively …