In two sets of novel laboratory experiments, we show that the mere presence of an existing alliance at the onset of coalition formation may lead managers to form economically suboptimal alliances. Study Set 1 considers alliance formation when a focal firm is already embedded in an existing coalition. These studies show evidence of a status quo bias: participants managing the focal firm tend to include the current partner in alliance offers and thus are less successful in forming optimal alliances compared to those in an unattached control condition. Study Set 2 examines the extent to which an unattached focal firm attempts to 'poach' away attractive coalition partners from their embedded alliances. Our results show evidence of poaching avoidance: participants make fewer offers to, and are less likely to partner with, an attractive firm already in an alliance. However, this tendency to avoid poaching may be attenuated when the existing coalition is perceived as a powerful threat and/or alternate partners are unavailable. These findings provide behavioral insights into how judgmental biases can constrain alliance formation. We conclude with a discussion of how selected environmental, firm, and decision-maker characteristics (e.g., turbulence, embedded relationships, and risk orientation) may moderate these results.

There is little direct (field) evidence demonstrating that a television show can systematically trigger a food consumption event. This research shows that watching NFL (American football) games on television causes people to consume more snacks than they would otherwise, an effect moderated by product-situation associations. We show this effect using a unique nationally representative sample of US consumers who self-report snacking behavior at the moment of consumption. Exploiting NFL games' unique temporal and geographic distribution, we are able to identify the causal effect of watching NFL games on real-world snack consumption. These findings appear to be robust across demographic groups as well as to different mappings between NFL teams and designated market areas (DMAs). These results show how product-situation associations can trigger consumption events and suggest practical implications for marketers as well as public health practitioners.

Using the Technology Adoption Propensity (TAP) index, a psychometric scale that measures four dimensions of consumers’ technological predispositions, we examine the relative influence of contributing (optimism and proficiency) and inhibiting (dependence and vulnerability) dispositional attitudes on the adoption of a varied range of 19 technologies. Our results indicate considerable differences in the relation between technology usage and the attitudes of respondents across the technologies. We show that individuals can be grouped into three technology clusters based on technological dispositions: high proficiency / low vulnerability; low proficiency & optimism / high vulnerability; high optimism / low vulnerability. Each cluster may indicate a need for a particular sales strategy given differences in consumer attitudes.

This research documents a premature infatuation effect in financial judgment and choice, and seeks to understand why it occurs. In many financial decisions, one potential investment choice becomes focal. The premature infatuation effect occurs when a focal investment possibility comes to be overvalued simply because it has come to the fore. Three experiments demonstrate that the premature infatuation effect influences financial judgments, choice intentions, and non-hypothetical decisions with financial consequences, and can drive suboptimal decisions. We show that financial expertise does not insulate individuals from this robust tendency. Non-intrusive process tracing methodology demonstrates that the tendency to engage in selective processing underlies the premature infatuation effect. We conclude by discussing how one can avoid falling victim to this bias, and the counterintuitive organizational implication that managers of firms' retirement plans can leverage premature infatuation to nudge employees to make better choices.

The literature on monetary giving has largely focused on the psychological mechanisms that underlie prosocial giving behaviors. Yet in practice giving is almost always done in response to a solicitation or "ask." In this paper we study solicitation strategy, providing evidence that the "ask" may alter the nature of an exchange relationship in a manner that favors recipients relative to giving situations in which the recipient is passive. We introduce a variant of the dictator game called the "begging game" in which an individual can ask for some or all of an amount of money bestowed upon another individual. Our results indicate that both the asked for and received amounts in the begging game are systematically higher than typically shown in dictator games, while asks of half yield the best result in expectation. When counter-offers are allowed, 87.5% ask for half or more of the total sum, with 80% receiving at least some money. Hence large asks are often not punished. Our combined results help quantify the "power of the ask."

After screening for attentiveness and comprehension, we present subjects with Ellsberg's (1961) two-urn problem using essentially equivalent but representationally complex matrices. High-comprehension subjects exhibit rates of ambiguity aversion typical of the standard two-urn problem, while low-comprehension subjects appear to randomise. In screening, we classify subjects as probability-minded' or ambiguity-minded', depending on whether they assign probabilities to draws from a card deck of unknown composition. Among high-comprehension subjects, mindedness' explains twenty times more variation in ambiguity attitudes than all other demographic characteristics combined. Compared with their probability-minded' counterparts, ambiguity-minded' subjects are younger and more educated, analytic, and reflective about their choices.

Using a rolling cross-sectional sample of over 40,000 U.S. snack food consumers during 2004-2010, we build a three-dimensional model to study how portion sizes, consumption context, and package characteristics jointly affect the amount of food consumed. As with prior research, we find that consumption does increase with larger portions. However, this effect diminishes significantly when accounting for the consumption context and packaging characteristics as consumption drivers. Most important is how the snack is presented to consumers at the point of consumption (type, size, and quantity of packages). We also find that snacking on impulse, alone, with a beverage, or while watching television increases the amount consumed, whereas socializing or snacking at home decrease consumption. We test our model over seven snack types (potato chips, crackers, cheese puffs, nuts and seeds, tortilla chips, pretzels, popcorn), and find that our results hold even for products with different cross-category granularity, palatability, and satiety.

We report two experiments examining managerial behavior in forming coalitions given the presence of an existing (status quo) alliance among firms. Experimental participants play the role of managers in a custom-designed computer game in which firms in a hypothetical industry have an incentive to form resource-based strategic alliances that optimize economic profits. We show that managers tend toward two groups: an “oversocialized” group that exhibits a reluctance to abandon an existing alliance (status quo) partner, inhibiting formation of economically more advantageous coalitions and an “undersocialized” group that exhibits profit seeking behavior in lieu of existing social ties. The difficulty of finding an alternative partner as well as the payoff difference between the status quo and best alternative partner informs the relative size of these two groups. The findings provide behavioral insights into managerial decisions on strategic alliances.

In this paper, we experimentally examine managerial behavior in forming strategic alliances given the presence of existing alliances among two or more firms. We employ a custom-designed computer game in which managers of firms in a hypothetical industry have an incentive to form resource-based coalitions that optimize profits. Across three studies, we show that managers often systematically avoid breaking or “poaching” an existing coalition that includes an attractive potential partner, even if doing so is economically advantageous. However, this tendency may be mitigated when the existing coalition is perceived as a powerful threat or when no other viable partnership options exist. The findings provide behavioral insights into managerial decisions on strategic alliances and endogenous coalition formation in cooperative games.

This article extends prior research on perceptions of price (un)fairness by attempting to disentangle where in the marketing channel (un)fairness inferences lie. Extant research in this area overwhelmingly considers (un)fairness perceptions with respect to the pricing action only, ignoring attributions aimed at specific channel actors. This article illustrates differences in (un)fairness inferences with respect to retailers and manufacturers given price increases accompanied by decreased product supply, increased demand, or increased variable costs. We show that a retailer is considered relatively more unfair than a manufacturer given a price increase accompanied by a demand increase, as well as when no explicit reason is given for the price increase. Conversely, a manufacturer is considered relatively more unfair given a price increase accompanied by a supply decrease. Both channel entities are considered equally fair given a price increase accompanied by a channel (both retailer and manufacturer) or manufacturer cost increase, while a retailer is deemed relatively more unfair given a price increase accompanied by a retailer cost increase. This research generally suggests that inferences of causality for specific pricing actions may differentially skew toward upstream or downstream channel entities depending on the particular economic circumstances of the price change.

We study the influence of attention and comprehension on ambiguity attitudes. Subjects are presented with screening questions before choosing between two alternatives represented by payoff-matrices which are essentially equivalent to those in Ellsberg's (1961) two-urn problem. The observed rate of ambiguity aversion for the standard two-urn problem is similar to what is reported in the literature regardless of the level of comprehension. When facing the essentially equivalent yet more complex matrix-based choice task, high-comprehension subjects continue to exhibit ambiguity aversion typical of the standard two-urn problem while low-comprehension subjects appear to behave randomly. We also classify subjects as "probability minded" or "ambiguity minded" based on whether they assign probabilities to draws from a deck of cards with unknown composition during the screening phase. High-comprehension subjects who are ambiguity-minded are far more likely to be ambiguity averse than those who are probability-minded. Significantly, subject "mindedness" appears to explain ambiguity attitudes an order of magnitude more than all other demographic characteristics combined. Contrary to intuition about subjects' sophistication, ambiguity-minded high-comprehension subjects are younger, more educated, more analytic, and more reflective about their choices compared with their probability-minded counterparts.

The present study develops and empirically tests a parsimonious new multiple-item scale to measure consumers' propensities to adopt new technologies. We show that a consumer's likelihood to embrace new technologies can reliably be measured by a 14-item index that combines assessments of consumers' positive and negative attitudes towards technology. Consistent with prior work on technology readiness, we show four distinct dimensions of consumers' technology adoption propensity: two inhibiting factors, dependence and vulnerability, and two contributing factors, optimism and proficiency. We develop the index on a cross-sectional dataset of U.S. consumers then establish the validity of each of the four component scales on two dissimilar validation sets. The resulting index shows sound psychometric properties and may be used by researchers interested in the antecedents or effects of each of the independent sub-scales.

In a set of novel lab experiments we show that the mere presence of an existing alliance at the onset of coalition formation may lead marketing managers to form economically suboptimal alliances. Study Set 1 considers alliance formation when a focal firm is already embedded in an existing coalition. These studies show evidence of a status quo bias: participants managing the focal firm tend to include the current partner in alliance offers and thus are less successful in forming optimal alliances compared to those in an unattached control condition. Study Set 2 examines the extent to which an unattached focal firm attempts to “poach” away attractive coalition partners from their embedded alliances. Our results show evidence of poaching avoidance: participants make fewer offers to, and are less likely to partner with, an attractive firm already in an alliance. However, this tendency to avoid poaching can be mitigated if the existing coalition is perceived as a powerful threat and/or alternate partners are unavailable. These findings provide behavioral insights into how judgmental biases can constrain marketing alliance formation decisions.