Assistant Professor in-Residence of Marketing, Kevin McEvoy, received a Session Best Paper Award for his presentation of The Toolbox-An Innovation Connecting Marketing Education and Practice, at the Academy of Business Research Conference held New Orleans in March. He also served as session chair. The Academy of Business Research is an international society of scholars and practitioners who exchange ideas and collaborate in all areas of business and business education.Continue Reading
Marketing
Marketing Scholars Address “Research Mobile Marketing”
The Marketing Department hosted the 2015 VOYA Global Colloquium, Research Mobile Marketing on April 10. The colloquium provides the great opportunity for researchers to gather and discuss research in the growing areas of social media, mobile marketing, and digital analytics. Faculty and Ph.D. students along with the vice president for Voya Financial Services enjoyed a day of presentations from some of the most distinguished scholars in marketing: David Bell, Adam Brasel, Sam Ransbotham and Andrew Stephen.Continue Reading
Spring 2015 Research Newsletter
Investigating the Value of Competitive Mobile Loyalty Program Platforms for Intermediaries and Retailers
Marketing Science Institute – Rajkumar Venkatesan, Joseph Pancras, and Bin Li investigate the value of competitive mobile loyalty program platforms for intermediaries and retailers.
Research Seminar with Rajesh Bagchi, Virginia Tech
On the invitation of the Marketing Department, Professor Rajesh Bagchi from Virginia Tech gave a research seminar titled, “Is a 70% Forecast More Accurate than a 30% Forecast?” on Friday, March 27. This research examines how level of a forecast affects inferences about forecasts and forecasters. Specifically, forecasters often state the probability when making predictions about uncertain events (e.g., sporting games, stock fluctuations). Continue Reading
Eight Outstanding School of Business Professors Earn 2015 Faculty Awards
A professor who used chocolate chip cookies to teach about quality control, three researchers who had work published in top journals, and an educator who vigorously promoted the School of Business were among the 2015 Faculty Award recipients.
“This year we honored eight outstanding faculty members for their exceptional research, teaching and leadership achievements,” said Associate Dean Sulin Ba. “The selection process was particularly difficult due to the dozens of impressive nominees. We are fortunate to have such talented, creative and remarkable colleagues.”Continue Reading
Work-Life Balance
Flexible Work Time Could be Salvation for Families–and an Advantage for Employers–So Why Do Companies, Employees Resist?
The typical two-income American family is stretched to the breaking point with responsibilities, and, for many, flexible work time would be helpful in finding a work-life balance, said Robert Bird, professor of Business Law.
“There are millions of people in our country under intense pressure,” said Bird, who is also the Northeast Utilities Chair in Business Ethics. “They are two-parent, working families taking care of children and/or elderly parents. Inflexible work schedules are making the stress even worse.”Continue Reading
Marketing Scholars Lurie and Pancras Invited to Mobile Marketing Thought Leadership Conference
Nicholas Lurie and Joseph Pancras, associate professors of marketing, were invited to the Thought Leadership Conference on “Mobile Marketing and its Implications for Retailing” held at the Mays Business School, Texas A&M University on Jan 21-23. Leading researchers in mobile marketing and industry practitioners participated in work group discussions on five different areas of mobile marketing.Continue Reading
UConn Marketing Professor, Colleague Find that Merchants Can Use In-Store “Showrooming’’ to Boost Online Sales
Most consumers today split their shopping experiences between traditional brick-and-mortar stores and internet purchases. But if you believe that traditional, in-store browsing is facing extinction, think again.
In fact, it is often a trip to the mall or shopping center that gives consumers the confidence they need to buy similar, or more upscale, items online, according to research conducted by UConn Assistant Professor Jane Gu and her colleague, Giri Tayi, from the State University of New York at Albany.Continue Reading
Faculty Research: Study Shows that Decision Aids Can Hurt Consumer Decision Making
Journal of Retailing (2014)
Nicholas Lurie. Co-Author: Na Wen.
To help consumers deal with increasing amounts of information, many online retailers offer simple decision aids, such as the ability to sort products on a particular product attribute. Intuitively, such aids should help consumers but, in a recent article, Nicholas Lurie and a colleague at City University of Hong Kong show that simple decision aids can hurt consumers’ ability to make good decisions.
Whether decision aids help or hurt depends on the extent to which choices involve tradeoffs among attributes. For example, a consumer buying a laptop might want a large screen and lots of memory. If large screen laptops usually come with lots of memory then using a decision aid to sort on screen size will help the consumer choose the best laptop for her. However if, instead, the consumer wants a large screen and light weight laptop, and large screen laptops tend to be heavy, sorting on screen size will not enhance choice. The authors suggest that consumers use simple decision aids as substitutes for cognitive effort and find that the more consumers use such aids, the lower the quality of their decisions. Providing consumers with multiple decision aids, such as the ability to eliminate as well as sort products, is one way to overcome the negative aspects of such aids.