Author: EconLearner

And yet other online communities, such as Stack overflowthey have thrived.The demise—or success—of sites like these is of interest Ahal Basabu, Kellogg professor of business. It seeks to understand how these types of online communities work, in particular, because they are a growing trend in customer service.”A big thing that’s happening in customer support is that people have moved to self-help because they don’t want to wait in call centers,” says Bassamboo. “And the FAQ is available, but the next level is making it more dynamic so people can ask questions and others can help them.”A wide range of businesses…

Lyft has always used an algorithm to match drivers and passengers, so they thought they could tweak it to make their plan work for Covid. But it turned out to be much more difficult than expected. “It showed the limit of the system,” he says Swallowwho is now an assistant professor of Operations at the Kellogg School.The main issue, Martin explains, is that simple algorithms — like matching the nearest driver to a passenger — don’t actually work that well.It got Martin thinking about how the matching algorithm could be improved, even after shares have recovered from the pandemic. What…

But what might this look like in practice? Here are five ideas to consider, each based on research from the Kellogg faculty.Tackle the hard stuff firstWhen you have a lot on your plate, it can be tempting to check off some of the easier items on your to-do list first. And then, maybe, just a few more easy ones.”You feel like you’re making more progress,” she says Mariam Kouhakiwhose research found that people gravitate toward simpler tasks when struggling with heavy workloads.She and her colleagues found, for example, that when ER doctors were given a choice of which patients to…

That’s the question users (referred to as “hosts”) on platforms like Airbnb and car-sharing company Turo face when deciding when to list their homes, vehicles and other items for rent.It is also a matter of interest Ahal Basabu, Kellogg business professor. Platforms like these are expected to increase revenue 335 billion dollars by 2025, so it is important to understand their dynamics. While previous research has mostly looked at how shoppers act on such platforms, Bassamboo and doctoral student Kellogg Neha Sharma were interested in the seller’s behavior: specifically, “if they report [their items] once they know they have availability…

But maintaining these partnerships is complicated and many don’t last, according to Karen Smilovichprofessor of Operations at the Kellogg School.In an era of cash-strapped schools, it’s important to understand what goes into a long-term partnership. “Public schools and others are facing budget constraints, so it’s important to think about … what makes their relationships with external partners more likely to survive,” he says. “A lot goes into whether these relationships succeed and endure.”In one previous studySmilowitz et al Samantha Kepler (then a PhD student working with Smilowitz) and Paul Leonardi of UC Santa Barbara interviewed principals, teachers and parents at…

But how should administrators adapt their roles to embrace ChatGPT?Kellogg’s Robert Bray has given much thought to the subject. Not that he had much of a choice. Just last year, he published a handbook for MBA students on how to use the popular programming language R. Then came ChatGPT. The powerful language model could handle the most difficult coding problems of its students. And while much about ChatGPT remained (and remains) uncertain, one thing was immediately clear: its long-awaited textbook—and the entire course it had designed around it—was now obsolete.So Bray regrouped and redesigned his course to incorporate ChatGPT. Along…

The perception that women pay a “pink tax” for products that are seemingly identical to those marketed to men has led to several new and proposed laws with the aim of ending price discrimination.But the legislation and the outcry assume that the so-called men’s and women’s products are, indeed, the same. New research reveals no significant price differences between comparable products aimed at women and men, he explains Anna Tuchman, professor of marketing at the Kellogg School. Co-authored the study with Sara Moscowari at the University of California at Berkeley and Natasha Batia Akrogoni Research.”Comparable” is the key word, Tuchman…

The revived bottle was sold in a vintage bottle and – as part of the launch – elite customers in New York were given the opportunity to drive past 1930s Prohibition landmarks in vintage cars. In a statement from Anheuser-Busch, the company that makes Budweiser, the company announced that the limited-edition product “gave beer lovers a chance to experience and taste history.”when Kent Grayson, associate professor of marketing at Kellogg, when he learned about the campaign, he immediately recognized that the company was appealing to customers’ desire for authenticity. That is, instead of appearing to respond to fickle consumer demands…

“When you look at consumer behavior, it’s like there’s a firewall between people’s behavior and the motivation behind it,” he says. Gina Fong”and you have to break that firewall.”To access this deeper understanding, Gina Fong interacts with customers in their natural environment: as they order coffee, choose their work clothes, and mop their floors. As a consumer anthropologist, Fong gains insights from these encounters that would never be visible on a spreadsheet.”There’s a saying in anthropology about making the unfamiliar familiar,” says Fong, clinical assistant professor of marketing at the Kellogg School and principal of Fong Insight, a marketing consulting…

But there is a rub. For individual donors, the benefits of sharing are much more limited. There is a risk that the sharer’s followers will do so think of them as braggarts or as someone who directs selfless acts for personal gain.Kellogg School Assistant Professor of Marketing Ike Silver he wondered if there was a way around this conundrum.In new research, Silver and co-researcher Deborah Small of Yale University found that when donors saw a message asking them to share their donation on their social media accounts to further the cause (rather than just sharing their donation), they increased clicks…