Business, Beedie School of

To understand why some patents get licensed and others do not, we estimate a portfolio of firm- and patent-level determinants for why a particular licensor’s patent was licensed over all technologically similar patents held by other licensors. Using data for licensed biopharmaceutical patents, we build a set of alternate patents that could have been licensed-in using topic modeling techniques. This provides a more sophisticated way of controlling for patent characteristics and analyzing the attractiveness of a licensor and the characteristics of the patent itself. We find that patents owned by licensors with technological prestige, experience at licensing, and combined technological depth and breadth have a greater chance at being chosen by licensees. This suggests that a licensor’s standing and organizational learning rather than the quality of its patent alone influence the success of outward licensing.

Traditionally, consumers used the Internet to simply expend content: they read it, they watched it, and they used it to buy products and services. Increasingly, however, consumers are utilizing platforms–—such as content sharing sites, blogs, social networking, and wikis–—to create, modify, share, and discuss Internet content. This represents the social media phenomenon, which can now significantly impact a firm’s reputation, sales, and even survival. Yet, many executives eschew or ignore this form of media because they don’t understand what it is, the various forms it can take, and how to engage with it and learn. In response, we present a framework that defines social media by using seven functional building blocks: identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups. As different social media activities are defined by the extent to which they focus on some or all of these blocks, we explain the implications that each block can have for how firms should engage with social media. To conclude, we present a number of recommendations regarding how firms should develop strategies for monitoring, understanding, and responding to different social media activities.

Environmental velocity has emerged as an important concept but remains theoretically underdeveloped, particularly with respect to its multidimensionality. In response, we develop a framework that examines the variations in velocity across multiple dimensions of the environment (homology) and the causal linkages between those velocities (coupling). We then propose four velocity regimes based on different patterns of homology and coupling and argue that the conditions of each regime have important implications for organizations.

In responding to customer questions or complaints, should marketing agents linguistically “put the customer first” by using certain personal pronouns? Customer orientation theory, managerial literature, and surveys of managers, customer service representatives, and consumers suggest that firm agents should emphasize how “we” (the firm) serve “you” (the customer), while deemphasizing “I” (the agent) in these customer-firm interactions. We find evidence of this language pattern in use at over 40 firms. However, we theorize and demonstrate that these personal pronoun emphases are often sub-optimal. Five studies using lab experiments and field data reveal that firm agents who refer to themselves using “I” rather than “we” pronouns increase customer perceptions that the agent feels and acts on their behalf. In turn, these positive perceptions of empathy and agency lead to increased customer satisfaction, purchase intentions, and purchase behavior. Further, we find that customer-referencing “you” pronouns have little impact on these outcomes, and can sometimes have negative consequences. These findings enhance our understanding of how, when, and why language use impacts social perception and behavior, and provide valuable insights for marketers.

Pride of ownership is explored in a series of depth interviews utilizing a new "surfacing" methodology. Results support some past findings, but also uncover some new and unexpected aspects. Consistent with past research, pride of ownership is linked to a brand’s or product’s ability to help consumers construct a positive identity. Specifically, we find that pride of ownership is related to constructing five major aspects of identity: cultivating personal taste, achieving non-dependence and adulthood, achieving social status, building close relationships, and connecting to groups. These five implicit identity goals are ordered based on the extent to which each aspect of identity is part of the independent-self (i.e. personal taste) or the interdependent-self (i.e. social roles and connecting to groups). We introduce the terms independent pride and interdependent pride to refer to pride that helps construct the independent and interdependent aspects of the self, respectively. In addition, this research uncovers several ways that consumer’s pride of ownership changes over time. Conclusions are drawn for further theory-building and for managers.

Using students as surrogates for managers in experiments is commonplace, yet this practice is not always valid. To explore when the use of student samples is appropriate, we replicate an experiment previously conducted employing a sample of senior managers involved in financial reporting. The result is that although student and manager responses are significantly different from a statistical perspective, both samples lead to the same conclusion for this experiment. The findings suggest that having some disassociation between students and the target population they are meant to represent does not necessarily make them inappropriate surrogates. To examine when inferences are best supported, we explore the comparability for student sub-groups and managers.

This paper examines how economic policy uncertainty (EPU) affects bank valuations. Using a large sample of banks over a long period, we find that EPU has a negative effect on bank valuations. One explanation for this result is that EPU reduces bank loan growth, and lower loan growth then leads to lower bank valuations. Consistent with this explanation, we find that the negative effect of EPU is more pronounced for banks with a higher ratio of loans to total assets.

This research examines the antecedents, causes, and consequences of linguistic mimicry, which assesses how closely individuals match others’ word use, in online WOM. We examine mimicry of both linguistic style (how things are said) and content (what is said). To our knowledge, this research provides the first demonstration of unique linguistic mimicry, where consumers engaging in online WOM differentially mimic other posters’ word use. Two experiments and one study using field data show that when consumers are personally similar to an individual who has previously posted (e.g., same gender), they mimic this individual’s positive emotion and social word use. When consumers are similar in status to an individual who has previously posted (e.g., same forum ranking), they mimic this individual’s cognitive and descriptive word use. This differential mimicry is driven by affiliation versus achievement goals, respectively, and affects consumers’ engagement in online WOM in terms of posting incidence and volume.

Marketers frequently use scarcity promotions, where a product or event is limited in availability. The present research shows conditions under which the mere exposure to such advertising can activate actual aggression that manifests even outside the domain of the good being promoted. Further, we document the process underlying this effect: exposure to limited-quantity promotion advertising prompts consumers to perceive other shoppers as competitive threats to obtaining a desired product and physiologically prepares consumers to aggress. Seven studies using multiple behavioral measures of aggression demonstrate this deleterious response to scarcity promotions.

Five experiments show that less physical involvement in obtaining food leads to less healthy food choices. We find that when participants are given the choice of whether or not to consume snacks that they perceive as relatively unhealthy, they have a greater inclination to consume these snacks when less (versus more) physical involvement is required to help themselves to the food; this is not the case for snacks that they perceive as relatively healthy. Further, when participants are given the opportunity to choose their portion size, they select larger portions of unhealthy foods when less (versus more) physical involvement is required to help themselves to the food; again, this is not the case for healthy foods. We suggest that this behavior occurs because being less physically involved in serving one’s food allows participants to reject responsibility for unhealthy eating and thus to feel better about themselves following indulgent consumption. These findings add to the research on consumers’ self-serving attributions and to the growing literature on factors that nudge consumers towards healthier eating decisions.