Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(271)
- Faculty Publications (43)
- June 2019
- Article
Learning to Become a Taste Expert
By: Kathryn A. Latour and John A. Deighton
Evidence suggests that consumers seek to become more expert about hedonic products to enhance their enjoyment of future consumption occasions. Current approaches to becoming expert center on cultivating an analytic mindset. In the present research the authors explore... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
A Preference for Revision Absent Improvement
By: Ximena Garcia-Rada, Leslie K. John, Ed O’Brien and Michael I. Norton
People regularly encounter revised stimuli (e.g., revised versions of products, new editions of
books, tweaked recipes, and technological updates). In principle, a world of constant revision
should benefit people by affording them the most up-to-date offerings. In... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Learning to Become a Taste Expert
By: Kathryn A. Latour and John A. Deighton
Evidence suggests that consumers seek to become more expert about hedonic products to enhance their enjoyment of future consumption occasions. Current approaches to becoming an expert center on cultivating an analytic mindset. In the present research the authors... View Details
- 2018
- Article
Overcoming Barriers to Time-Saving: Reminders of Future Busyness Encourage Consumers to Buy Time
By: A. V. Whillans, Elizabeth W. Dunn and Michael I. Norton
Spending money on time-saving purchases improves happiness. Yet, people often fail to spend their money in this way. Because most people believe that the future will be less busy than the present, they may underweight the value of these purchases. We examine the impact... View Details
- June 2017
- Article
Creating Reciprocal Value Through Operational Transparency
By: Ryan W. Buell, Tami Kim and Chia-Jung Tsay
We investigate whether organizations can create value by introducing visual transparency between consumers and producers. Although operational transparency has been shown to improve consumer perceptions of service value, existing theory posits that increased contact... View Details
- Article
Social Recycling Transforms Unwanted Goods into Happiness
By: Grant Edward Donnelly, Cait Lamberton, Rebecca Walker Reczek and Michael I. Norton
Consumers are often surrounded by resources that once offered meaning or happiness but that have lost this subjective value over time—even as they retain their objective utility. We explore the potential for social recycling—disposing of used goods by allowing other... View Details
- August 2016
- Article
The Role of (Dis)similarity in (Mis)predicting Others' Preferences
By: Kate Barasz, Tami Kim and Leslie K. John
Consumers readily indicate liking options that appear dissimilar—for example, enjoying both rustic lake vacations and chic city vacations or liking both scholarly documentary films and action-packed thrillers. However, when predicting other consumers’ tastes for the... View Details
- Article
Anger and Regulation
By: Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra
We study a model in which agents experience anger when they see a firm that has displayed insufficient concern for the welfare of its clients (i.e., altruism) making high profits. Regulation can increase welfare, for example, through fines (even with no changes in... View Details
- 2012
- Working Paper
Entrepreneurship in the Natural Food and Beauty Categories Before 2000: Global Visions and Local Expressions
By: Geoffrey Jones
This working paper examines the creation of the global natural food and beauty categories before 2000. This is shown to have been a lengthy process of new category creation involving the exercise of entrepreneurial imagination. Pioneering entrepreneurs faced little... View Details
- June 2012
- Class Lecture
Why You're Not Buying Venezuelan Chocolate: The Provenance Paradox
By: Rohit Deshpandé
A product's country of origin establishes its authenticity. This is the provenance paradox. Consumers associate certain geographies with the best products: French wine, Italian sports cars, Swiss watches. Competing products from other countries - especially developing... View Details
Keywords: Global Business; Branding; Strategic Planning; Strategic Positioning; Emergent Countries; Consumer Perception; Developing Markets; Brands and Branding; Geographic Location; Globalized Markets and Industries; Perception; Emerging Markets; Product Positioning; Global Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Venezuela
- September 2011
- Article
The Labor Illusion: How Operational Transparency Increases Perceived Value
By: Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton
A ubiquitous feature of even the fastest self-service technology transactions is the wait. Conventional wisdom and operations theory suggests that the longer people wait, the less satisfied they become; we demonstrate that due to what we term the labor illusion, when... View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
Regulating for Legitimacy: Consumer Credit Access in France and America
Theories of legitimate regulation have emphasized the role of governments either in fixing market failures to promote greater efficiency or in restricting the efficient functioning of markets in order to pursue public welfare goals. In either case, features of markets... View Details
- 2010
- Article
The Strategic Use of Brand Biographies
By: Jill Avery, Neeru Paharia, Anat Keinan and Juliet Schor
We introduce the concept of a brand biography to describe an emerging trend in branding in which firms author a dynamic, historical account of the events that have shaped the brand over time. Using a particular type of brand biography, "the underdog," we empirically... View Details
Keywords: Marketing; Brands; Brand Management; Brand Building; Brand Positioning; Competitive Positioning; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Managerial Roles; Strategy; Product Positioning; Consumer Behavior; Biography; Success; Perception; Markets; Power and Influence; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Consumer Products Industry
- 2004
- Chapter
Managing the Global Brand: A Typology of Consumer Perceptions
By: Douglas B. Holt, J. A. Quelch and Earl Taylor
- winter 2001
- Article
Interpreting Consumer Perceptions of Advertising: An Application of the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique
By: Robin A. Coulter, Gerald Zaltman and Keith S. Coulter
- March 1999 (Revised December 2001)
- Background Note
Analyzing Consumer Perceptions
By: Robert J. Dolan
Describes the perceptual mapping techniques in a non-technical fashion. The procedure is useful for the depiction of the structure of the market. Discusses alternative methods, presents examples of each, and shows how the maps can be used in marketing decision making. View Details
- 1996
- Chapter
Commercial Technology: Imaginative Understanding of User Needs
By: D. A. Leonard and J. Doyle
- January 1989 (Revised December 1991)
- Case
British Airways: ""Go for It, America!"" Promotion (A)
Senior marketing executives of a major international airline are deciding on a strategy to address a crisis situation precipitated by a series of terrorist acts. The company is experiencing the worst downturn ever in its U.S.-U.K. travel business due to media reports... View Details
- 1978
- Article
Perceptions of Unfair Marketing Practices: Consumerism Implications
By: Gerald Zaltman, Rajendra K. Srivastava and Rohit Deshpandé
Previous research in complaint behavior has ignored the perception of unfair marketing practices as an explanatory variable. Perceptions of unfair marketing practices are related to consumer complaint behavior, although differentially related across different ages.... View Details
- Forthcoming
- Article
Consumer Choice and Corporate Bankruptcy
By: Samuel Antill and Megan Hunter
We estimate the indirect costs of corporate bankruptcy associated with lost customers. In incentivized experiments, randomly informing consumers about a firm’s Chapter 11 reorganization lowers their willingness to pay for the firm’s products by 17%-28%. Consumers worry... View Details