Yangjie GU

Associate Professor

Marketing

Biography

Yangjie Gu is an Associate Professor of Marketing at HEC Paris. She received her Ph.D. in Marketing from London Business School and was previously a faculty member at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Her research has been recognized with the Robert Ferber Award from the Journal of Consumer Research, and she was named one of the Poets & Quants “40 Best Under 40 MBA Professors” in 2022.

Drawing on a behavioral decision science approach, Yangjie studies consumer judgment and decision-making across two interconnected domains. One stream of her research examines the psychology of preference and satisfaction, investigating how consumers construct and revise preferences in response to assortment composition, information framing, and contextual cues, and how hedonic experiences evolve over time. A second stream focuses on health and wellbeing, exploring how individuals perceive and respond to risk and uncertainty, and how psychological and identity-based processes shape resistance to beneficial health behaviors and products. Her research has been published in leading academic journals including the Journal of Consumer Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, and Journal of Retailing.

In her teaching, Yangjie emphasizes customer-centric strategy, value creation, product innovation, and data-informed decision-making. She highlights how organizations create and manage customer value, foster innovation, and leverage customer insights to inform strategic and managerial decisions across markets. She teaches core and advanced marketing courses across MBA, Executive MBA, Executive Education, and doctoral programs at HEC Paris. She currently coordinates Marketing in the foundational phase of the MBA program and oversees the Ph.D. program in the Marketing department. From 2019 to 2025, she also served as the International Research Chair at L’Oréal.

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Scientific articles

The trivial-task motivation effect: highlighting completion of an initial trivial task increases motivation for the main task

Marketing Letters, June 2024, vol. 35, pp 219-230, (in coll. with E. Chan, A. Krishna)

Highlighting supply-abundance increases attraction to small-assortment retailers

Journal of Retailing, June 2023, vol. 99, n° 3, pp 420-439, (in coll. with Y. Wu)

Seeking and Avoiding Choice Closure to Enhance Outcome Satisfaction

Journal of Consumer Research, February 2018, vol. 45, n° 4, pp 792–809, (in coll. with S. BOTTI, D. FARO)

When It Could Have Been Worse, It Gets Better: How Favorable Uncertainty Resolution Slows Hedonic Adaptation

Journal of Consumer Research, February 2017, vol. 43, n° 5, pp 747–768, (in coll. with Y. YANG, J. GALAK)

An Experience-Utility Explanation of the Preference for Larger Assortments

International Journal of Research in Marketing, September 2017, vol. 34, n° 3, pp 746-760, (in coll. with A. AYDINLI, M. PHAM)

Turning the Page: the Impact of Choice Closure on Satisfaction

Journal of Consumer Research, August 2013, vol. 40, n° 2, pp 268-283, (in coll. with S. BOTTI, D. FARO)

Specification Seeking: How Product Specifications Influence Consumer Preferences

Journal of Consumer Research, April 2009, vol. 35, n° 6, pp 952-966, (in coll. with C. HSEE, Y. YANG, J. CHEN)

Working papers

Seeking and Avoiding Choice Closure to Enhance Outcome Satisfaction

Cahier de Recherche du Groupe HEC , 2018