Marketing


Fall 2017 Research Newsletter

Hello to friends and colleagues across the country and around the world! The beginning of a new academic year is filled with energy and excitement, both for our students and our faculty. This year that momentum is augmented by a team of new faculty members who bring both extensive research accomplishments and a love of teaching to UConn.


The Power of Empathy

Kelly Herd (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)
In their studies, UConn marketing professor Kelly Herd (pictured, above) and Ravi Mehta of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, ask participants to design a child’s toy, select ingredients for a new kids’ cereal, and redesign a grocery cart for the elderly. Each time, the group that produced the most original products was the one instructed to imagine the target consumers’ feelings before beginning the task. (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)

When Product Developers Invoke Emotion, Do They Generate More Creative Ideas?

What kind of potato chip would you create, and what would you name it, if you wanted to sell the product exclusively to pregnant women? Continue Reading


VOYA Colloquium Asks: How is Marketing Adapting to the Digital Age?

From left: Shijie Lu, Ying Xie, Yakov Bart, and Xueming Luo. (Nancy White/UConn School of Business)
From left: Shijie Lu, Ying Xie, Yakov Bart, and Xueming Luo. (Nancy White/UConn School of Business)

“Marketing in the Digitalized Marketplace” was the theme of the marketing department‘s 7th VOYA Global Colloquium. The Oct. 20 event gathered marketing researchers from across the country to discuss research in the growing areas of user-generated content, social networks, new media, and digital analytics. Continue Reading


If You Slash the Price, They Will Come!

Joseph Pancras, associate professor of marketing, used data on customer traffic, sales per transaction, and profit margin for a total of almost 14,000 transactions over a period of 49 weeks. (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)
Joseph Pancras, associate professor of marketing, used data on customer traffic, sales per transaction, and profit margin for a total of almost 14,000 transactions over a period of 49 weeks. (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)

Professor Joseph Pancras Identifies Best Sale Items to Lure Customers Away From Other Grocery Stores

If you want to increase grocery store sales, offer a discount on beer. And then place a tempting display of salty snacks right next to it—at full price.

That’s some of the well-researched advice that marketing professor Joseph Pancras and his colleagues offer grocery store executives in a newly published article in the Journal of Retailing. Continue Reading



New Business Faculty for 2017

Leanne Adams speaks with Christopher Miller after the first faculty meeting in September. Both Adams and Miller are new instructors-in-residence in the accounting department. (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)
Leanne Adams speaks with Christopher Miller after the first faculty meeting in September. Both Adams and Miller are new instructors-in-residence in the accounting department. (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)

Impressive Professors Bring Strong Credentials, Added Zeal to School of Business Ranks

An expert in terror analytics, a marketer who worked for NBC, Pepsi and Disney, and a champion of the volunteer income tax program at UConn are among the newest faculty at the School of Business. Continue Reading


Do Deep Promotional Discounts Work? New Study Sheds Light on Strategy

University of Arkansas – Many retailers employ discounts to attract customers, but it can be difficult for businesses to know what effect these discounts have on overall store performance, and few studies have analyzed store-level data to know for sure whether this strategy works.

Read article



Puerto Rico’s Debt Dilemma and Pathways Toward Sovereign Solvency

American Business Law Journal, Vol. 54, No. 1, 2017

Stephen Park

Puerto Rico, as a quasi-sovereign U.S. territory, is confronting a debt crisis of unparalleled legal complexity. This article analyzes the collective action problems in sovereign debt finance in the context of Puerto Rico’s quasi-sovereign debt dilemma. We examine how sovereign debtors engage with their private creditors in the absence of a formal bankruptcy regime and show how various legal incentives, imperatives, and constraints shape the degree and form of creditor engagement. Drawing on this conceptual framework, this article analyzes the role of these factors in the market-based debt restructuring by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) and hypothesizes how these factors may influence the statutory restructuring process underway under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA). Despite the idiosyncratic aspects of Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, the potential pathways for debtor-creditor cooperation in Puerto Rico provide valuable insights on the various ways that law influences debtor-creditor cooperation in sovereign debt finance beyond the enforcement of state-based public regulation and contract-based private legal commitments. Full article.


Using Proactive Legal Strategies for Corporate Environmental Sustainability

Berger-Walliser, G., Shrivastava, P., Sulkowski, A. Using Proactive Legal Strategies for Corporate Environmental Sustainability. 6 Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law, 1-36 (2016). Date Published: June 2017

Gerlinde Berger-Walliser

We argue that proactive law can help organizations be more sustainable. Toward that end, this Article first summarizes proactive law literature as it pertains to corporate sustainability. Next, it examines a series of cases on the pivotal nexus between proactive law and corporate sustainability. It then advances novel propositions that connect proactive law to central organizational design elements. The discussion traces further implications and suggests fruitful avenues for research and ways of using proactive law for firms to become more sustainable. Full article.