Corporate diversification can be risky and costly, but the results of two researchers' latest study suggest that customer-centered companies may have a key advantage when it comes to such organizational change. Exclusive interview with Assistant Professor John Mawdsley (HEC Paris) on his and Professor Deepak Somaya’s latest research.
By John Mawdsley
Luxury is a three faceted word. It refers first to a concept, very subjective thus always hotly debated. It is also a very lucrative macro-economic sector that has been growing over the last 25 years. Finally, it also designates a very specific strategy, distinct from other strategies such as a fashion strategy, a premium strategy or a masstige strategy. Any company can adopt a luxury strategy even if it does not produce the classical goods or services traditionally associated with the luxury sector. Apple is a typical example.
Consuming can boost self-worth feelings, but might adversely impact consumer well-being. Our new research published in Journal of Consumer Research shows that consumption of certain products can restore feelings of self-worth that have been damaged for whatever reason. However, this boost or restoration effect is diminished by overt marketing tactics like slogans or taglines that make products’ link to the hurt self-identity aspect overly explicit.
By L. J. Shrum , Dr. Nimish Rustagi
Can studying fake news be good? At least two professors at HEC Paris think so. Ludovic François and Dominique Rouziès explain why and how in their recent Harvard Business Review article entitled “The Real Story of the Fake Story of One of Europe’s Most Charismatic CEOs”. In this article they recount how HEC Paris offered a seminar to teach students how to manage corporate crisis by using the internet. In the process, the seminar taught the students the impact of fake news. Here is the story.
Successful marketing and advertising rely on the effective use of persuasive language. To help marketers and advertisers choose the right language devices to persuade consumers, researchers Ruth Pogacar, L. J. Shrum and Tina M. Lowrey provide an easy-to-use framework.
By Tina M. Lowrey , L. J. Shrum
The relationship between cannabis and society is a long and deeply contested one. Throughout history, cannabis has been associated with everything from health, leisure, and pop culture to criminal and immoral behavior. But beyond the simple debate about whether cannabis is good or bad, the study of cannabis markets needs interdisciplinarity, to know what is required to construct an effective and fair contested market.
By Dane Pflueger , Daniel Martinez Ahloy
Loneliness and materialism are linked. In a recent study, Elodie Gentina, L.J. Shrum and Tina Lowrey investigate the materialistic coping strategies that can alleviate loneliness and its associated unethical behaviors. They find that adopting active strategies, like sharing possessions, leads to fewer unethical tendencies, while passive strategies, like product acquisition, can lead to more.
The conference focused on the challenges facing 21st century salesforce management. New players with disruptive strategies are forcing many major companies to reinvent their salesforces. The internet and cloud services are altering the nature of customer relations and there is a sharp rise in the technical competencies required by today’s salespeople. These are driving big changes in the role of marketing and sales requiring new attitudes, tools, and competencies to effectively manage sales performance. Director General of HEC Paris, Peter Todd, gave an exceptionally insightful keynote speech signifying that business schools were aware of these trends and working to create and share the knowledge necessary for successful salesforces in the 21st century.
This special issue of Knowledge@HEC highlights several research projects and teaching initiatives at HEC Paris in the context of big data and business analytics. Nowadays it does not take much to convince students or managers alike of the importance of data for businesses. As Wedel and Kannan (2016) put it, “data is the oil of the digital economy”. Indeed, data is completely transforming organizations, and data-driven decision making is becoming more and more a part of a company’s core. In an increasing digital world, all of us are walking data generators, leaving long data trails: we have more data on everything.
By Ludovic Stourm , Peter Ebbes
Marketing campaigns traditionally target individual customers, while ignoring their social connections. In a recent study, however, Eva Ascarza, Peter Ebbes, Oded Netzer, and Matt Danielson, had unique access to telecommunications data and a field experiment that enabled them to take a first-ever look into the effects of a traditional customer relationship marketing campaign on social connections.
By Peter Ebbes
