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- All HBS Web
(1,719)
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- News (249)
- Research (1,281)
- Events (3)
- Multimedia (2)
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- 06 Apr 2009
- Research & Ideas
Cheers to the American Consumer
litany of reasons why America spawns so many entrepreneurs. There is barely an acknowledgment of what Amar Bhide (HBS MBA '79) has appealingly termed "the venturesome consumer." Yet this willingness to adopt new products, new processes and new services more... View Details
Keywords: by John Quelch
- 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
Dolan, Robert J. "Analyzing Consumer Perceptions." Harvard Business School Background Note 599-110, March 1999. (Revised December 2001.)
- 05 May 2008
- Research & Ideas
Connecting with Consumers Using Deep Metaphors
problems. Lindsay Zaltman: I have been exploring new ways to leverage the power of deep metaphors in other research methods. For instance, I have been developing an applied ethnographic approach that allows us to see how deep metaphors influence the 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
Keywords: Consumer Choice; Sharing Economy; Opportunity Cost; Time-as Money; Well-being; Time Management; Happiness; Perception; Behavior
Whillans, A. V., Elizabeth W. Dunn, and Michael I. Norton. "Overcoming Barriers to Time-Saving: Reminders of Future Busyness Encourage Consumers to Buy Time." Social Influence 13, no. 2 (2018): 117–124.
- December 2020
- Article
Consumer Reactance to Promotional Favors
By: Marco Bertini and Aylin Aydinli
Promotional favors are an increasingly popular but seldom researched form of price promotion where the receipt of the saving by consumers depends on an action on their part that is nonmonetary in nature, such as completing a questionnaire, posting a review, or making a... View Details
Keywords: Promotional Favors; Conditional Discounts; Psychological Reactance; Price Promotions; Pricing; Marketing; Price; Consumer Behavior
Bertini, Marco, and Aylin Aydinli. "Consumer Reactance to Promotional Favors." Journal of Retailing 96, no. 4 (December 2020): 578–589.
- 28 Oct 2009
- Lessons from the Classroom
HBS Begins Teaching Consumer Finance
MBA programs in America and the top five in Europe. While some offer banking courses, and others offer behavioral courses, none had a course that was specifically about consumer finance. Here at HBS, we have... View Details
- 2011
- Article
The Consumer Psychology of Mail-in Rebates
By: John T. Gourville and Dilip Soman
Consumers who buy a product intending to use an accompanying mail-in rebate often do not redeem the rebate. To explain this behavior, we argue that consumers use an anchoring and adjustment approach to predicting the likelihood of redeeming a rebate. In keeping with... View Details
Gourville, John T., and Dilip Soman. "The Consumer Psychology of Mail-in Rebates." Journal of Product & Brand Management 20, no. 2 (2011).
- March 2006
- Course Overview Note
Consumer Marketing: Rethinking the Core
By: Youngme E. Moon
Outlines the structure and content of an advanced MBA course entitled Consumer Marketing: Rethinking the Core. The course, which is part of the second-year curriculum at the Harvard Business School, focuses on a reexamination of several fundamental marketing paradigms... View Details
- November 2003 (Revised April 2004)
- Background Note
Why Consumers Don't Buy: The Psychology of New Product Adoption
Looks at the consumer psychology of new product adoption. Identifies a key reason why consumers do not adopt innovations as quickly as developers think they should--an irrational resistance to behavioral change. Identifies strategies for firms to manage and overcome... View Details
Gourville, John T. "Why Consumers Don't Buy: The Psychology of New Product Adoption." Harvard Business School Background Note 504-056, November 2003. (Revised April 2004.)
- Article
Consumer Behavior, Retailer Power and Performance in Consumer Goods Industries
By: M. E. Porter
Keywords: Consumer Behavior; Performance; Goods and Commodities; Supply and Industry; Consumer Products Industry
Porter, M. E. "Consumer Behavior, Retailer Power and Performance in Consumer Goods Industries." Review of Economics and Statistics 56, no. 4 (November 1974): 419–436.
- January 2005 (Revised June 2005)
- Case
Zipcar: Influencing Customer Behavior
By: Frances X. Frei and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar
At Zipcar, customers share the use of cars and, as a result, rely on each other for their service experience. Customers are required to keep the car clean and the gas tank full and to return the car on time. Told from the perspective of two customers: Sal Fishman, who... View Details
Keywords: Information Technology; Governance Controls; Behavior; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Consumer Behavior; Leasing; Transportation Industry; Service Industry; United States
Frei, Frances X., and Hanna Rodriguez-Farrar. "Zipcar: Influencing Customer Behavior." Harvard Business School Case 605-054, January 2005. (Revised June 2005.)
- March 1997
- Background Note
Note on Customer Behavior
By: Gerald Zaltman
A review of selected key concepts that are useful for understanding customers. The importance of understanding customers is also discussed, along with a short description of new frontiers in the study of customer behavior. View Details
- March 2006
- Background Note
Influencing Customer Behavior in Service Operations
By: Frances X. Frei and Amy C. Edmondson
Explores ways in which service firms can influence the behavior of their customers. Drawing from research on employee motivation and applying it to customer motivation, the note describes two levels of managerial control: instrumental control, which shapes behavior... View Details
Keywords: Customers; Governance Controls; Consumer Behavior; Service Operations; Emotions; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence; Service Industry
Frei, Frances X., and Amy C. Edmondson. "Influencing Customer Behavior in Service Operations." Harvard Business School Background Note 606-061, March 2006.
- March 2023
- Article
Giving-by-proxy Triggers Subsequent Charitable Behavior
By: Samantha Kassirer, Jillian J. Jordan and Maryam Kouchaki
How can we foster habits of charitable giving? Here, we investigate the potential power of giving-by-proxy experiences, drawing inspiration from a growing trend in marketing and corporate social responsibility contexts in which organizations make charitable... View Details
Kassirer, Samantha, Jillian J. Jordan, and Maryam Kouchaki. "Giving-by-proxy Triggers Subsequent Charitable Behavior." Art. 104438. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 105 (March 2023).
- February 2013
- Article
Commitment and Behavior Change: Evidence from the Field
By: Katie Baca-Motes, Amber Brown, Ayelet Gneezy, Elizabeth A. Keenan and Leif D. Nelson
Influencing behavior change is an ongoing challenge in psychology, economics, and consumer behavior research. Building on previous work on commitment, self-signaling, and the principle of consistency, a large, intensive field experiment (N = 2,416) examined the effect... View Details
Baca-Motes, Katie, Amber Brown, Ayelet Gneezy, Elizabeth A. Keenan, and Leif D. Nelson. "Commitment and Behavior Change: Evidence from the Field." Journal of Consumer Research 39, no. 5 (February 2013): 1070–1084.
- December 2008
- Article
Behavioral Frontiers in Choice Modeling
We review the discussion at a workshop whose goal was to achieve a better integration among behavioral, economic, and statistical approaches to choice modeling. The workshop explored how current approaches to the specification, estimation, and application of choice... View Details
Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Integration; Goals and Objectives; Decision Choices and Conditions; Problems and Challenges; Business Processes; Customers; Behavior; Economics
Adamowicz, Wiktor, David Bunch, Trudy Ann Cameron, Benedict G.C. Dellaert, Michael Hanneman, Michael Keane, Jordan Louviere, Robert Meyer, Thomas J. Steenburgh, and Joffre Swait. "Behavioral Frontiers in Choice Modeling." Marketing Letters 19, nos. 3/4 (December 2008): 215–219.
- 13 Sep 2010
- Research & Ideas
The Consumer Appeal of Underdog Branding
Biography," details her joint research about the trend and its implications for brand management. Keinan, an assistant professor in the Marketing Unit at Harvard Business School whose research on consumer View Details
Keywords: by Martha Lagace
- 16 Apr 2018
- Research & Ideas
Can Consumers Be Saved From Their Misguided Decisions?
iStock Consumers make regretable decisions every day, even though easily available information should convince them to do otherwise: Twenty-six percent of consumers choose Advil or other branded headache... View Details
- May 2020 (Revised August 2022)
- Teaching Note
Direct to Consumer Brands
By: Sunil Gupta
In recent years, we have seen a dramatic rise of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands. Many of these brands, such as Dollar Shave Club, Harry’s, Glossier, and Allbirds, entered mature markets dominated by established companies, and yet they grew rapidly to attain valuations... View Details
- 1981
- Article
A Consumer Based Approach for Establishing Priorities in Consumer Information Programs: Implications for Public Policy
By: Rohit Deshpandé and S. Krishnan
Although there exists substantial research on the style and format of consumer information programs, little attention has been devoted to the critical issue of whether consumers need new information at all. A conceptual approach to systematically assess this... View Details